A Song of Ice and Fire
by Tebby Sweet
Summary: "The past is already written. The ink is dry." But the future was changed, the board reset, the book being rewritten. Bran climbed shakily to his feet, watched the world around him move and take no notice of him. All he could do now was watch the new story unfold.
1. Bran

**Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, I just like to torment them and see how they react.  
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**aesthetics are included in chapter if you read this on ao3, penname: Tebby_Sweet

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If you're here because you're following A Timeless Light, don't hate me! Chapter 13 is coming! But the last couple of months were completely ruined by Game of Thrones for me and I finally just had to get it out, I couldn't move on past it so I had to jump in feet first and write. What started as a small fix it fic quickly spiraled out of control and left me with this beast. So here we go, my second epic in the making, a complete AU retelling I had no business starting.

Also, be warned now that while this story is mostly based off the books, which I have read and prefer, I will be mixing elements from the show as I see fit. Yes, the books are better and S7/S8 were trash, but since that's the only ending we have at the moment, this story assumes that ending and all previous events as canon. What I write will then be a mixture.

Please understand up front that as an author I refuse to tag every single aspect of my story. For the sake of not giving away important plot points ahead of time, and I would never expect a book I picked up off the shelf to do so either. Also please note that just because something seems obvious at first and you assume I have mistagged or purposefully mislead readers, I do know this story in it's entirety, as opposed to what the readers have read. I may refuse to slap 75+ tags on it but what tags I put are there for a reason.

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**Bran**

King's Landing was hot. Stiflingly so. A lifetime of harsh Northern winds had left him ill suited to the humidity of the capitol city. Brick and stone seemed to sweat here, the heat rising off in shimmering waves, leaving nothing but the smell of sweat and the bright glare of the sun.

Much of the city was still in ruins. Towers, walls, houses, shops, none had been spared the dragon's rage. Piles of crumbled rock as tall as the buildings that had once stood there, unrecognizable streets and districts. What little remained was scorched black and stained red with old blood.

King's Landing was little more than a scarcely closed wound. Far from healed, badly sewn, barely cleaned before the bandages were applied.

He could see it, far from now, how it might look again. Gleaming white and gold towers, markets bursting and plentiful, the towering Red Keep magnificent once more against the backdrop of Blackwater Bay.

Or perhaps he was seeing it as it had been, in a time long past.

It was hard to say sometimes. He was the Three-Eyed Raven and he saw both everything and nothing at all. It was all there to be seen, if he could only understand what he was looking at.

They wheeled him across the bumpy path that had been haphazardly cleaned in preparation for today. Steep piles of debris lined both sides but not much could be done about the deep gouges in the earth where once there had been pavement. Whispers followed their slow procession all the way, furtive glances of the common folk as they made their own weary way about the wreckage, fierce glares from the remnants of two of the greatest armies Westeros had ever seen.

None of it bothered him so much as the heat.

The sun was high and the air thick with humidity when they finally reached their destination. Of all the places in Kings Landing to have survived the queen's wrath, the Dragonpit seemed to have endured without so much as a stone out of place. Of course, considering the ruin it had been before the battle, he supposed that wasn't saying much.

He was pushed to the top of the elevated platform and placed underneath one of the raised canopies that had been erected between them and the sun. His sisters took their places beside him, silent and cold as the lands they called home.

Bran knew what was coming.

He had seen it months ago, perhaps longer if he were being honest with himself. But seeing and knowing were two different things and it wasn't until he had returned to Winterfell that he allowed himself to know the inevitable.

They would name him king here at this council of the last left standing, and it was the last thing he had ever wanted.

As the Three-Eyed Raven he would have been most content to be left alone to ages past.

As Bran he had wanted to be a knight, bold and brave and as far from lordship as he could ride.

As the king he would have neither of those things.

And that was acceptable. Little truly troubled him anymore, and what did was all in the past where nothing could be done.

Well, except for the heat.

The council commenced and played out exactly as he'd known it would. When Tyrion was brought before them to speak, wisdom born of experience and mistakes poured forth. He would be a good Hand of the King, even though he did not want it.

Perhaps it was the ones who truly did not want power who were best suited for it.

Perhaps all it did was corrupt and it was meant for no one at all.

It had certainly never done anyone he knew or cared about any good.

His father was long dead, victim to a deadly game he had refused to play, and his mother and brother had followed, two sides of the same cursed coin. Rickon died almost before he'd had a chance to live. Arya was alive and stronger than ever, but separate and alone in her knowledge and skills. Sansa was cold as ice and hard as the North itself but Bran had seen and understood each and every loss. Her innocence, her friends, her protector, it was all gone and nothing but the queen remained. And Jon was even now rotting away in some undisturbed room of the Red Keep, as close to a cell as Greyworm could find after the castle's dungeon had collapsed in on itself. Nothing they did to him could ever compare to the pain and rage he felt after killing the Dragon Queen, however, and his sorrow at her death would live in him until he died.

Power had done nothing for the Lannisters or the Baratheons, the Martells or the Tyrells. Not a single person Bran had ever known had been capable of turning power into prosperity and he wondered if any of them going forward could. The future was an open book before him but it's words were a confusing language he would always be learning to read.

The past was easier.

There, Bran could see everything that had happened and understand exactly where it all went wrong.

It was a blessing and a curse, to be able to see but not change, though Bran mostly felt it a curse.

When the council named him Bran the Broken, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, he almost sighed at the ridiculous inevitability of it all.

How had it come down to this?

Later, when he was back in the Red Keep and the sun had mercifully sunk below the horizon with only the promise of an equally unbearable tomorrow, Bran sat alone in the throne room. Whatever former glory it may have possessed was no more, hidden under broken rock and a fine layer of ash that never seemed to go away. The towering, arched ceilings were all but gone, only a few charred beams left behind, exposing the room to the humid night air. The Iron Throne that so many people had fought and died for was nothing but a black stain on the ruined stones.

Bran sat facing it but his eyes were on another stain. The blood had soaked through rubble and dirt and dried in the remains.

A queen had died here.

A king, too, though he would never be crowned.

It was all such a waste.

How many others had died here in this room, in this same spot? He thought of the grandfather and uncle he had never known, thought of the Mad King executing them here for protesting Prince Rhaegar's kidnapping of Lyanna Stark, yet another event that could have prevented Robert's Rebellion if it had just been... handled differently.

The Mad King, they had called him. It was said he'd heard voices no one else heard, saw things no one else could see. Bran could almost sympathize with him. He too was tormented by everything he couldn't change.

Lost in thought, eyes fixed on Daenerys's blood staining the ground, Bran didn't notice at first when the world around him began to fade to white, reforming around him as stone walls stood tall once more and the Iron Throne rose before him, immense and terrible.

It wasn't until the screams started that he jerked his head up to see Aerys Targaryen himself atop the throne, pointing at the bloodstain between him and Bran, the bloodstain on smoothly polished stone that did not belong there, not in this time at least. The King was screaming incoherently, eyes wild and bulging, screaming at something only he and Bran could see.

"Your Grace, please, what is the matter? Your Grace, pray, tell us!" A man was begging the Mad King to the right of the throne and Bran tore his eyes away from Aerys to see a man he had never met but recognized from his trips to the past. Lord Varys, master of whisperers. The king did not answer him as he continued to scream and gesticulate wildly. Bran regarded him with a queer sort of pity. He was certainly not a good king, but he also seemed to be quite justified in his madness. If he saw the blood here on his stone floors that belonged to a time many years away, who knew what else he saw? Before consciously realizing what he was doing, Bran began to speak.

"This all could have been prevented, you know."

The Mad King went silent, waxen face white as bone as he stared at Bran at the base of the throne, not a cripple in the past but a man standing tall.

Could he see him?

"All of it. The rebellion, the death, the secrets. So many lives ruined for love and a throne. Your own daughter, dead at your feet. Don't you see the blood?"

The Mad King was still as death and Bran knew he heard every word.

What did it matter anymore? The king heard many things, Nothing Bran told him could make him less mad, and he strongly doubted Aerys could become any worse.

"So many chances to prevent it. Rhaegar and Lyanna, before they ran off together. My uncle and grandfather, before you executed them. Even my father, if someone had just _told _him what truly happened. He might have killed you but he would never have hurt Lyanna, he might have tried to stop Robert before he killed Rhaegar. So many secrets and they didn't save anyone!"  
The more he spoke, the angrier he felt. It had been a long time since Bran had felt anger. A long time since he had felt anything at all.

All this death and misery and him left to put the pieces back together to a puzzle he hadn't broke.

"You could have stopped all of this yourself! You and Rhaegar, you both made choices and you chose _wrong!_" He was screaming now, screaming at the Mad King who no longer looked mad, only frightened. It was Bran who felt mad now. What was the point of any of it? His powers let him come here, let him see the puzzle before it broke but they didn't let him stop anything. He could only scream at a mad king who no one would listen to and watch it all happen again and again.

_"The past is already written. The ink is dry."_

He wanted to rant and rave, to rip it all to pieces, burn it all down and start again.

Was that how Daenerys had felt?

He would never know, would never have the chance to ask her.

The world was full of injustice like that.

_"The past is already written. The ink is dry."_

Was that Bloodraven speaking in his memory or was it him? Bran could no longer tell the difference. On the Iron Throne, the Mad King cowered, hands over his ears as the things he heard tormented him and no one could save him from his own mind.

If the past was already written, Bran wished he could burn the book. If the ink was dry, he wished to rewrite it, to change everything that had gone wrong and make a new book, one better than the one he had read.

But he didn't have the power to change the past, and the Mad King who crouched before him and heard his words was too mad to do anything with them.

As quickly as it had come, Bran's rage vanished. He was tired in a way he couldn't remember being in a very long time, resignation and defeat tiresome companions. He looked away from the king to observe the throne room around him, and that was when he finally saw the gruesome scene that must have played out moments before his arrival. An unseen and yet familiar sight, one he had heard about many times as Bran Stark, the young lord of Winterfell, but had yet to glimpse in the past.

The black remains of a body, still in armor, hung from the high rafters, swinging grotesquely in the air above a pile of smoking wood that Bran knew had born wildfire. A great longsword was buried in the charred bones of that wood, and inches away lay a dead man, arms and fingers outstretched towards the sword he could never have reached. The ropes around his neck were so tight that the flesh of his face and neck bulged and swelled around them, turning the skin purple and black and causing the blood vessels in the eye sockets to burst. The ropes were connected to a long pole that had tightened them more and more the harder the man struggled against them to reach the sword and save his father.

The charred man was Lord Rickard Stark, and the strangled man was his eldest son, Lord Brandon Stark.

_"The past is already written. The ink is dry."_

"Nothing I can change. Nothing to be done," Bran said to himself now, weary all the way to his bones. He'd had enough of the past for one day. He closed his eyes to warg back into his real body in the ruined throne room.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing was changed.

He was still standing at the foot of the Iron Throne, the bodies of his uncle and grandfather lay behind him, the Mad King cowered before him, and the blood of Daenerys Targaryen soaked into the stone between them.

He closed his eyes. Tried again.

Nothing.

What was happening? Why couldn't he leave this cursed place he had never meant to come to? Was there something more for him to see? Some new horror to bear witness to and take back with him?

Lost in his thoughts once more, Bran didn't see Aerys rise shakily to his feet, stumble down the steps toward him. It wasn't until he felt thin, bony hands grasp his shoulders that he jerked his head up in shock. How could the king touch him?

The king was shaking him now, screaming, spit flying from his mouth as he raged. Bran tried desperately to free himself from his grip but the king was stronger than he looked and Bran felt blood well up in his shoulders where the kings nails dug through clothes and into skin. He fought back, panic building inside him.

Suddenly, the king was wrenched away and Bran stumbled back, losing his footing and falling heavily to the ground. He felt pain in his palms and looked down, eyes widening in both amazement and horror. The skin was bloody and raw, tore from the rough stone.

How could he be hurt here? It shouldn't be possible. This wasn't his time. He was nothing but a specter here.

Except he wasn't, not anymore, at least not to the Mad King and the cold floor beneath him. Aerys was being pulled back by armored guards, being spoken to soothingly by Lord Varys and a Maester Bran didn't recognize, but his crazed eyes never left Bran, the young man sprawled on the floor of his throne room with bloody palms that only he could see.

They pulled the king from the throne room and his screams echoed back to Bran through the long halls of the Red Keep.

He had no idea how long he sat there, shocked and unmoving before the Iron Throne. Guards and servants moved past him, sometimes through him it seemed, but they never noticed him there. The bodies of Rickard and Brandon Stark were removed and all traces of their deaths cleaned and scrubbed away, but the stain of Daenerys Targaryen's blood remained and Bran's palms bled and scabbed. He lost count of the number of times he tried to warg back into his body unsuccessfully.

It wasn't until hours later, still seated unseen where he'd fallen, that a commotion behind him roused him from his mind and to his feet.

Aerys was striding back into the throne room, dressed for travel, the manic look still in his eyes but a determined set to his old, thin face. He stopped just past the massive double doors to stare at Bran, almost exactly where he'd left him. The Mad King stared at him in silence as the moments stretched on, and Bran stared back. Then without a word, Aerys turned on his heel and stormed from the room, haggard guards and confused servants trailing behind him.

This time, Bran followed.

Into the outer yard, where armored knights were waiting on horseback, servants leading mules and caravans loaded with supplies. Bran watched from the steps of the Red Keep as the king was helped onto his own horse, a splendid white and gray mare who seemed to be of a blessedly more docile temperament than her rider. She waited, patient and still as the old king fumbled onto her, yanking at her bridle and gripping her harder with bony legs than was necessary.

Bran felt a mounting confusion coupled with a growing unease as he observed the scene before him.

He had been no scholar in his youth at Winterfell, but neither was he ignorant of the histories of Westeros, particularly the tales of the Mad King who had died only a few years before Bran himself was born. Aerys hadn't left the Red Keep in years before Lord Tywin entered the city during the rebellion and Jaime Lannister drove a sword through his back. He had holed himself up as tight as possible, seeing betrayal and murder in every shadow.

So where was he going now? And why?

In all the tales Bran had ever heard of the Mad King, he had not stirred from his keep during the rebellion, not even when his son, Prince Rhaegar, was killed by Robert on the Trident. He wondered briefly if perhaps he had been misinformed... but no. Something was happening. Aerys had touched him and his hands were bloody, he couldn't return to the present and the Mad King was taking one last look at him across the yard before riding out of the Red Keep like the ghosts of hell rode on his heels. And perhaps, to Aerys, they were.

"Where is the king going?" Whispered a servant to his right.

"I heard the guards saying he's going to find Prince Rhaegar." Answered another.

Bran turned to face them, though they did not see him.

"What for, do you reckon? Think he's gone to execute him, like the Stark lord wanted? For kidnapping the girl?"

"Why would he kill them first for treachery if he was gonna ride off and kill the prince anyway?"

"Why does he do anything he does? He's mad, ain't he? You heard him screaming like he'd seen his own ghost, right there in the throne room."

The whispering servants cast furtive glances about the yard before continuing.

"You reckon Prince Rhaegar really took the Stark girl?"

"Doubt it, the prince is good, better than... well, anyway, he's already married to Princess Elia, and two kids on her. He could have had the Stark girl without running off with her and causing such a fuss."

"Still, they say Starks don't like to lie, and that's a big one, saying the prince kidnapped the girl. They died for it, too."

Before they could continue their gossip they were ushered away by an older servant, scolding them in tense, hushed tones for discussing such things so openly. Bran watched them go as his unease rose to new heights.

With no one to see him, he sat again on the steps, cross legged, and closed his eyes.

With his own time seemingly locked to him, he searched instead for the future. He looked for Robert's Rebellion, for Prince Rhaegar dying on the Trident, for Lyanna entrusting Jon to Ned Stark as she lay in a pool of her own blood in the birthing bed, for Jon growing up a bastard at Winterfell and Ned traveling with King Robert to the capitol and losing his head, the years of war and bloodshed and winter that followed.

Bran looked into the future and no longer saw any of those things.

Instead, he again saw a future that was plain to the eye but difficult to understand.

He was flying over Westeros and he saw fire and blood, stretching on for years. He saw the seven realms cracked at the borders and turned on their neighbors. He saw Targaryen colors, reds and silvers and dragons flying in the North, fire and ice. Baratheon and Lannister banners flew together and the sky thundered and broke over the Stormlands without end. Direwolfs in the West and South, running alongside hounds. A girl with Tully looks and the Stark fierceness, dressed in Lannister colors, alone with no family to protect her. Dragon crowns in Kings Landing and direwolf crowns in the North, and a great, terrible cold creeping from beyond the wall, turning everything to ice in its path. And a man with a dragon crown and white direwolf at his side, Valyrian steel in hand, standing between the cold and the rest of the world.

Bran flew across all of Westeros, once, twice three times, looking for any sign of the future he remembered. But that future was gone now, burned away in the flames of war, of dragon fire, it was impossible to tell the difference anymore. The realms shifted and groaned and cracked beneath him and he plummeted to the ground, fast and hard as his body once had as a child. Just before he hit the earth, his body jerked and his eyes opened. The outer yard surrounded him still, dark and ominous and all too real around him. He could hear Bloodraven in his mind, over and over again, and he tried to tell himself this wasn't possible, couldn't happen.

_"The past is already written. The ink is dry."_

But the future was changed, the board reset, the book being rewritten. Bran climbed shakily to his feet, watched the world around him move and take no notice of him.

All he could do now was watch the new story unfold.


	2. Ned

**Ned**

War was an exhaustive business.

Sometimes Ned wondered wearily to himself if this one would ever end, and if it did whether he would live to see it.

He rode into Winterfell by the South Gate, dismounting in the courtyard and handing the reigns to Hullen, his master of horse. The warmth he could feel emanating from the Great Hall to his right tempted him, and he could sense his family and comfort in the murmured voices the wind carried him, but the Godswood called to him more urgently that night.

That was where he walked now, slowly, not bothering to rush after the hard ride home. He passed the library and the kennels, nodding to guardsmen on duty and armored soldiers moving from one place to another as he went. Winterfell was full to bursting with assembled bannermen, soldiers and even the odd knight here and there, and had been for years now. They filled the barracks, the guest house, and spilled over to the standing camps around Winterfell that only came down on the eve of battle. Not that much battle reached them all the way here at the castle, buried so deep in the ice and snow as to be an impractical target. But the armies of the North rode out far and often, fighting the king's war and aiding the forces of the Riverlands in the near constant attacks they faced from both East and West.

His eldest son had joined the fighting two years earlier and it seemed inevitable that his second would see battle before anything was resolved. Keeping his daughter away from the fighting had proved to be an act of sheer will in itself the older she got, and not for the first did Ned question his own sanity at hiring the Bravosi swordmaster to instruct her four years ago. His youngest son was wide eyed and awestruck by everything his siblings did, and seven years was too young to understand that battle was nothing glorious to be celebrated.

Ned turned right when he reached the Hunter's Gate, towards the iron gate that opened to the Godswood. He nodded a greeting to the guardsmen on duty and it wasn't until he heard the metal _clang_ behind him that he finally allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

Home was inside the Great Hall, surrounded by his family and soldiers, in his rooms late at night with Catelyn in his arms and nothing between them but skin, in the courtyards watching his children grow a little more each day.

Peace was inside the Godswood, though. On the fallen limbs beside the heart tree with the hot springs filling the air with warm, earthy scents. The sounds of Winterfell faded away, lost in the dense trees that stretched over three acres, buffeted by the high walls that protected them. Ned sat at the base of the heart tree now and offered his silent prayers as best as he could.

Peace was one thing, but prayer had been harder and harder to keep up as the years bled together, the war vastly unchanging and both sides fierce and unyielding. While the North was as far removed from the center of the action as Dorne was on their other side, they were ever present at the heart of the conflict that Dorne had refused to take part in almost from the beginning. Ned sometimes wished, selfishly and secretly before he buried it again beneath the ice and snow, that he could have made the same decision for the North.

But he couldn't make his decisions for Winterfell alone, not with Lyanna in the East and her children heirs to an embattled throne, not with the two kings warring ceaselessly for years over a broken betrothal, not when his own daughter...

Prayer often felt hollow to Ned as the years came and went.

He offered them anyway, empty though they felt in his heart. When he was done he took a swatch of oiled leather from his cloak and pulled Ice from its scabbard to give his hands something to do while he sat and contemplated what to tell Catelyn when she found him.

The greatsword was polished to a dark glow and he still had no answers when she came.

"Ned," she called to him softly.

He lifted his head to look at her.

"Catelyn," he greeted his wife, his own voice distant and formal to his ears as he struggled to find words she would not want to hear. "Where are the children?"

He always asked her that. Acknowledging them first, his constant concerns. She smiled softly, sadly, years of understanding between them.

"In the family chambers, bickering about their cousin's nameday ceremony approaching, what Robb should gift his betrothed when he sees her again, and whether or not Riverrun will be safe to pass through," Catelyn told him, spreading her cloak on the forest floor beside the pool, her back to the giant weirwood. He knew she found no solace in the old gods, could not blame her for her distrust.

"Safe enough. The Lannister forces withdrew to Casterly Rock during the last battle at the Red Fork. Tywin will be licking his wounds for a while now. We pursued them up the River Road and past the Golden Tooth, driving his forces away from the borders. For now, at least," Ned told her. She nodded slowly, her eyes asking the question before she hesitantly gave it voice.

"Did you... was there any word, any sight...?" She trailed off, unable to give name or form to the thoughts in her mind.

Ned sighed deeply. He replaced the oiled leather inside his cloak, leaned Ice against the great fallen limb he rested upon. Catelyn regarded him warily as he moved to kneel before her, reaching out and taking her small, pale hands in his own, much larger and battle scarred. He looked down at them rather than her eyes as he tried to find the words.

"No sight, not this time. But there was talk, Cat... on the road, at the inns and in the villages we passed through. A lot of rumor to cloud the truth, but beneath the speculation they're all saying the same thing," he paused again, trying and failing to find a way to soften the blow.

"What are they saying? Tell me. Don't try and sweeten it, Ned. It's been almost sixteen years. I can handle it," Catelyn replied firmly, small hands gripping his own tightly. She was stronger than she looked, Tully strength and loyalty and a bit of the Stark fierceness she had picked up over the years. He still hated himself for hurting her now, even though he knew she could take it. He met his wife's eyes somberly.

"She's to be married to the prince. Sometime in the next few months, as both their namedays are approaching. She'll leave Casterly Rock permanently then, and join him at Storm's End."

He could see how hard it was to hear, as painful as it had been for him. The daughter they had barely known, taken from them at barely two weeks old in what was still one of the bloodiest battles of the war to date. The Battle of the Bloody Gate had ended any hope Ned still fostered in his heart of peace between the two kings and solidified the North on the side of the Iron Throne. He had let go forever of the man he thought he knew, who had once been closer to him then a brother.

"But she is... Sansa is their hostage, why would they even consider marrying her to the prince? Surely there are matches the Lannister woman would deem more suitable! And the king, his hatred for Stark women is well known after Lyanna, I can scarce believe he would marry his only son and heir to to Lyanna's niece!" She cried out, eyes beseeching him, begging him to tell her it was nothing but a cruel rumor.

He wished desperately to tell her it was so, that their daughter was tucked away and all but forgotten by the other side. But it was not so, and he would not do Catelyn the disservice of raising her hopes only to see them dashed painfully.

"Their hostage, yes, and what better way to forever tie our hands painfully in the battles to come? If she marries the prince and we manage to free her, spirit her home, she'll be forever marked by that marriage, honor bound not to marry again unless her husband is slain. If she bears him children, it will be our grandsons and granddaughters we seek to drive out and wage war against. Marriage to Prince Steffon will earn her no freedom, no more rights than she has now. They will only bind her to them more, invisible shackles of a different kind," Ned replied, hating his own words, willing his voice not to break as he spoke them least Catelyn fall apart as well. She was trying so hard, her eyes wet, face tight, biting her lip as she held the tears at bay. She gave him the courage to be strong.

"How could they be so cruel, Ned?" She asked.

Ned had no answer for her.

It was a question Ned had been asking himself for fifteen years now, since the king betrayed him at the Bloody Gate, betrayed the man who had been like a father to them both. In his minds eye he could still hear the screams of dying soldiers as the king broke the treaty of peace they had met under, Northmen and Vale soldiers alike as they fell weaponless, unprepared, before the Baratheon and Lannister army. He saw Robert as clear as if he stood before him once more, swinging that cursed warhammer hard and true, crushing Jon Arryn's breastplate in with the force of his blow and leaving him bloody and dying on the ground. Lysa Arryn screaming before they slit her throat in front of her sister, the wetnurse running with them with a babe in her arms as they retreated from the carnage, falling back as fast as they could go towards Riverrun, towards anywhere safer than the carnage behind them.

And he would never forget until his dying day, that terrible moment when Catelyn reached out for their daughter, still sobbing hours later when they finally slowed, when she took the babe from the wetnurse and pulled the blankets back from a face that was not Sansa's. Her scream of horror had been worse than anything Ned had ever heard, worse than watching Robert kill Jon, worse than the bodies of his father and brother when they were returned from the Red Keep for burial, and worse than anything he could imagine ever hearing again.

The wetnurse had pleaded tearfully at first, insisting she hadn't known, that the babes must somehow have been switched before the fighting begun, that she had picked up what she thought was Sansa Stark and ran for her life. But her act quickly fell apart in the face of the lords of the North and Riverrun combined.

She had been paid off by Lannister men at the bidding of King Robert when the Northern host reached the Bloody Gate, had handed over the infant Stark girl and taken a nameless babe in return moments before the battle began. She begged forgiveness, threw herself at Lady Catelyn's feet and sobbed and wailed. Ned had unsheathed Ice, prepared to have her head himself for her treachery, but Catelyn was closer. Her tears dried as she watched the woman before her whimper and cry and she pulled a dagger from her cloak quicker then Ned could believe, pulled the girls head back by a fistful of hair and slit her throat on the banks of the Trident.

Robert had sent a raven to them where they remained at Riverrun in the days that followed, informing them that Sansa Stark had been taken as a war hostage and would remain a ward of the Lannister's until such time as the war was ended.

But the war had not ended. On and on it raged, year after year, battle after battle, Rhaegar Targaryen on the Iron Throne with Lyanna Stark at his side and three Targaryen children between them. Robert Baratheon on his self-claimed throne in the Stormlands, Cersei Lannister married to him and tying the Lannister's to his cause, two children of their own and Sansa Stark in their grasp for fifteen years.

Ned loved Lyanna deeply, had taken up arms for her against his closest friend when Rhaegar came to him, pleaded his forgiveness and told him of their marriage, of the child they were expecting. Had helped fight their war for so long and would do it all again if he had the choice. But the loss of his daughter... it was hard not to lay that at Rhaegar and Lyanna's feet.

He stood, pulling Catelyn to his feet as he went and wrapped her in his arms. She buried her face against his chest but did not weep.

"There is nothing we can do now that we have not been doing for fifteen years, Cat. We fight, and eventually we win, and pray we get the chance to tell her how sorry we are for taking so long," he told her gently, stroking the long auburn hair he loved so much.

"They say the prince is cruel and hateful like the parents who made him, Ned. How could she ever forgive us for letting it come to this?" Catelyn replied.

"I wish I knew, Cat."

"Did you hear anything else, from the villagers or innkeeps? Do they know her at all?"

Ned smiled softly into his wife's hair.

"The villagers who saw her said she was as lovely as the Maiden herself, with true Tully looks to match her mother, Lady Catelyn. And the innkeeps who met her said she had a temper something fierce when riled, with a sharp tongue and sharper wit to match."

Catelyn lifted her head to look at him, sadness heavy in the soft planes of her face.

"Would that she were not even half so beautiful. She was so perfect, so delicate when she was born, Ned, do you remember? Now I wish she had not been. Perhaps if she were less of a prize, they would not be so eager to marry her to their prince," she said.

"Perhaps so. And then they might have married her off to someone worse, simply to be rid of her. The lords and knights they keep are not honorable men, nothing like the men you've always known, Cat. The Mountain is the king's champion, and he's gifted him three wives to date. They've all been dead in less than a year. Prince Steffon may be cruel, but he's only a boy. Better they find this an acceptable match then to toss her as a bone to a man like the Mountain."

Catelyn shuddered in revulsion but nodded, accepting the truth of his words, unpleasant though they were.

"We should return to the castle, Ned. The children are eager to see you, I think they must have a thousand things they've been bursting to tell their father in the last month. We need to talk about the trip to the capitol for your nephew's nameday, and Robb could do with a bit of encouragement with his wedding drawing so near. He's quite beside himself, more likely to swallow his tongue then successfully say two words to the princess," Catelyn said, drawing back to let Ned sheath Ice. He bent to retrieve her cloak from the ground and shook it out before placing it gently around her shoulders.

"He just hasn't had the practice, Cat. Eighteen years old and accomplished on the battlefield, he's been too busy."

She took his hand and smiled as the walked out of the Godswood together.

"Accomplished on the battlefield but can't figure out if his princess would prefer a pretty winter cloak for her journey North or jewels for her own pretty throat."

"War is easier then women, my lady."

Catelyn swatted him playfully on the arm as she laughed. Ned smiled a rare smile. The shadows were still there, in her eyes, but they had retreated some to make way for the joy. It had been a hard fought battle for them both, learning to accept the joy in life despite the anguish.

The rest of the night was spent in warmth and laughter, surrounded by his children and the mayhem that often accompanied them. Robb tried, quite unsuccessfully, to surreptitiously ask his father his opinion on furs and jewels, Arya laughed for five minutes at her brother's fumbling and then insisted on showing Ned the new form she had mastered in her water dancing while he'd been away. Bran was eager for details on the battle at Riverrun and Rickon had lost a tooth, memorized the names of King Rhaegar's Kingsguard, and landed his first arrow, all of which he considered equally impressive achievements at seven years old.

He held Catelyn tight that night, long after their lovemaking had subsided and they had lain panting in the firelight. He stroked her soft, auburn hair, breathed it in deep, and silently swore to her for what must have been the thousandth time that he would bring their daughter home.


	3. Jon

**Jon**

Jon didn't believe in the gods.

Well, to be more accurate, he didn't believe in the Seven.

For as long as he could remember he had attended worship in the High Sept of Baelor with his father, had knelt and prayed and asked guidance and protection of those he loved, and for as long as he could remember those prayers had fallen on seemingly deaf ears.

Perhaps there was too much of the North in him, as his father sometimes said with a rueful shake of his head. Perhaps the new gods did not listen to his prayers because he was not truly one of their own. He thought of his mother and her godswood, the one seldom used but by the queen herself. Septa Bora had always said that it was no use praying to the old gods so far south of their domain, that their power and protection ended outside the North where weirwoods grew scarce and the Seven held sway.

That had never stopped his mother, though, and Jon wondered at her faith. Had her old gods answered her prayers over the years? Did she truly find peace as she knelt before the face carved in the heart tree, or did she offer them now simply out of habit and respect?

He stood in one of the tall alcoves overlooking the throne room and watched as the Silent Sisters performed the funeral rites. They walked around the body seven times, bowing at each tip of the seven pointed star as they offered their silent prayers for the passage of the man laid out in state before them.

He heard soft footsteps behind him, the whisper of silks, but he neither turned nor looked away.

"Jon. Jon, come away with me, please. You've hardly slept or ate for two days now. Even my brother retired to rest this morning, and Lyanna is worried for you."

He felt her hand on his arm.

"There was nothing you could have done. The maester says he died very suddenly in his sleep. None of us could have possibly known."

Jon finally turned to face her.

"I was supposed to visit him that night, Dany. We were going to have dinner and talk about the war, about me going to battle, and he'd promised to speak to Father about it, to make him listen. But I didn't go because I was tired from the ship ride from Dragonstone, as if that was some great voyage to complain about. So I sent him a note asking to postpone until the next night but the next night turned out to be too late. If I'd been there, maybe I would have seen something, noticed he was acting strange. I might have called the maester and he might still be alive." Jon said bitterly. He wasn't sure if he were angry at the gods for letting it happen or himself for not preventing it.

"Or maybe you would have had dinner and never noticed anything wrong, because sometimes terrible things happen without warning. You can't carry every death with you like this, Jon, some things are outside our control." Daenerys told him gently, violet eyes beseeching him listen to her. He wished he could convince himself of the truth of her words but they felt like nothing more than hollow excuses to his heart.

What was the point of being a prince, heir to a throne and a kingdom he'd never done a single thing to protect or earn? His father kept him away from the true war, even though it was known King Robert's son, Prince Steffon, rode into battle himself and commanded troops of his own. He was almost two years younger than Jon, barely sixteen, but he had already earned the respect of his soldiers. Jon had never been allowed to fight beyond the tall walls of the training grounds, and the only reason he'd been granted steel for training was because Jon Connington, Hand of the King, had convinced his father that sixteen years of sparring swords was at least five years too many for a prince. He had always spoken up for Jon to the king, able to make his father listen where his own words had no effect. As the years passed and the king became more and more preoccupied with the war, the Hand had taken on the duties of a father on top of his service and listened to all the prince's troubles and woes, giving him advice and a serious ear rather than the tolerant, placating attitude his father so often showed him.

And now he was dead, and Jon had never properly thanked him. In the end, he couldn't even be bothered to have dinner with him, a pitiful payment for the kindness he had always shown the prince. Jon wondered how to explain all of this to Daenerys, to make her understand what he was feeling. Perhaps she already knew. She had always known him better than anyone else. And soon he would lose her too, he thought bitterly.

"He deserved better." Jon told her simply.

"And so do you. Please, let's go find some food and fresh air. There's nothing you can do here and you need to rest before the entombment tomorrow morning. We can go to my chambers and eat on the terrace." Daenerys replied, and finally Jon let her lead him away from his brooding perch among the shadows.

They walked quietly through the halls of the Red Keep, and Jon was grateful for the silence she gave him. Daenerys was always understanding like that, knowing intuitively when to comfort and when to wait.

When they reached her chambers Jon headed straight for the open terrace at the opposite end of the room and collapsed tiredly on the soft satin cushions piled high against tall stone columns. He could hear Daenerys speaking softly to one of her maid servants, feel the breeze off Blackwater Bay as it cooled him in the ever present heat. Daenerys joined him a few minutes later just as he had begun to drift off to sleep, and he roused himself somewhat unwillingly to eat the food her servants were spreading on the low tables before them. He had no true appetite, but it would please Daenerys to see him eat something.

"Has there been word from Winterfell while I was away? Has Uncle Ned said when they would arrive for the ceremony?" He asked after the servants had placed their meal and left them alone once more.

"Not until this morning. The king received the raven shortly after retiring to his chambers, informing us they would be leaving Winterfell in a month's time, but my brother thinks it more likely they will depart in a fortnight or less, to throw off any of King Robert's forces who may be sent to intercept them." Daenerys said.

"Did father send news back of Jon Connington's death?" He asked, and she nodded solemnly.

"He bade him take his time on the journey south, but just like Uncle Ned will likely leave Winterfell sooner than he said, he will likely see that Rhaegar meant for him to come as quickly as possible. He has said no word about the matter yet, at least not to me, but you and I both know he will ask Uncle Ned to assume the role as Hand of the King."

Uncle Ned. Daenerys had always referred to his gruff Northern uncle as has her own, despite his uncle's sister being her own sister in law. Daenerys was his aunt but she was almost a year younger than him, and orphaned at birth. Rhaegar and Lyanna had all but raised her as their own daughter, and he knew she loved the Starks of his mother's family fiercely for the kindness they had always shown her.

"Will he accept, though? The North is large and naturally defensible, but Uncle Ned will be loathe to leave it with war at all sides." Jon mussed.

"Perhaps, but with Robb of age now he might be more amenable to the idea. And with the wedding so near as well, there will be a Lord and Lady to hold Winterfell, allowing him and Aunt Catelyn to stay together here at King's Landing." Daenerys said, her cheeks rosy with a pretty blush she tried her best to hide. He smiled, albeit a bit begrudgingly, at her shyness.

"And how do you feel at seeing your soon to be husband again? Not too nervous, I hope, with barely six months left till the deed," he asked a bit slyly, fluttering his eyes at her until she threw an orange at him and buried her red face in her hands.

"Stop it, Jon, it's not funny! The last time I saw him we barely spoke two sentences to each other and I spilled my wine on his doublet I was so nervous!" She moaned dejectedly, words muffled by the hands pressed to her face. Jon burst into laughter.

"You spoke two sentences to one another because you were both too shy to make eye contact and I don't think Robb would have even noticed the wine when you spilled it if you hadn't panicked, he was too busy trying to sneak glances at you while you ate," he teased her, laughing harder as she dropped her head to the table and covered it with her arms.

"Just wait, Jon. Eventually you're going to get betrothed to some pretty girl who makes you nervous and I, being an experienced wife at that point, will do nothing but torment you until the very night of your wedding."

The threat was distinctly less impressive mumbled from her hiding spot underneath silver hair. Still, her words had a sobering effect.

"You'll have to torment me by letter, which I'm certain won't have the same nagging effect you're so capable of. Winterfell is a long way away." Jon said, and he knew she heard the sullenness in his tone even though he tried his best to hide it.

Daenerys lifted her head from the table, cheeks still slightly flushed but her eyes were kind.

"Not so far away. We can still visit and see each other as often as we want to make the trip, and when you get betrothed I'll come and stay with you for three whole months before the wedding and annoy you endlessly," she proclaimed imperiously.

"Uncle Ned and mother have only seen each other once or twice every couple of years since she married father and came to King's Landing," he reminded her.

"Are we Ned Stark and Lyanna Targaryen? No. So we'll see each other as often as we decide we wish to and become very familiar with the Kingsroad." Daenerys declared, mouth set in that stubborn frown he would swear she had inherited from the Starks, if she'd had any blood relation to them. He smiled again slightly.

"I should know better than to argue with you by now. Even when I'm right I come out thinking I must have gone wrong somewhere," he told her ruefully. Daenerys laughed airily at that.

They ate then, platters of sliced beef and goat cheese, apples and Dornish blood oranges followed by sweet pumpkin soup, a favorite of Daenerys's. They were reclining on the cushions, sipping from glasses of iced almond milk and honey and talking quietly as they watched the sun make it's slow descent over the horizon, when the servants knocked on the doors to Daenerys's chambers and bowed the king and queen inside.

Jon stood up quickly, bowing slightly as Rhaegar and Lyanna walked out onto the terrace and the servants closed the doors softly again behind them. They held hands, something he rarely saw married couples do besides his parents. Uncle Ned and Aunt Catelyn did too, and Jon had decided secretly, long ago, that he would like to marry a woman one day whose hand he wouldn't mind holding just to walk from one room to another with.

Jon moved over on the cushions to make room and Rhaegar held onto Lyanna's hand as she lowered herself carefully to sit beside her son, before taking a seat between his wife and his sister.

"We looked for you both at dinner, but Septa Bora said you'd had a small meal here instead." Lyanna said. Jon couldn't resist a small roll of his eyes.

"Isn't eighteen old enough to tell the Septa she doesn't have to watch our every move anymore?" He asked. Lyanna returned his eye roll with a dramatic one of her own.

"When you have children of your own one day, Jon, you'll find no age is old enough for a parent not to worry anymore," she replied.

"When I have children of my own one day, I'll tell their Septa to mind the little ones and leave the older ones be," he told his mother. The words were light and teasing though, and he poured her a glass of honeyed milk as he spoke.

"Septa Bora has no little ones anymore, though she'll say the four of you will always be little in her eyes." Rhaegar said, and Jon grimaced while Daenerys smiled brightly.

"Where are Rhaenerryia and Torren?" She asked her brother.

"Rhae decided to retire early for the services in the morning, and Torren is making a nuisance of himself with the soldiers on the training grounds, pestering them for war stories and challenging the biggest ones to duels." Rhaegar replied dryly with a small smile.

"He'd better be careful. Most of them will be cautious out of respect for his title but the last time he challenged Clegane, he got knocked halfway across the yard and broke his practice sword." Jon said, remembering the look on his little brother's face when he'd went sailing through the air and landed on his ass half a dozen yards from where he'd started. Jon was well familiar with the feeling. He'd grown up getting knocked around the training grounds by the Hound as well, and he doubted it would stop his brother any more then it had stopped him. Clegane was damn near a legend on the battlefield and for a young boy learning combat, few things were more awe inspiring than watching the huge warrior fight, even if _you_ were the unfortunate target.

"Luck is on your brother's side this time. I sent Clegane out a sennight ago with two dozen soldiers to scout along Goldroad. Lannister soldiers have been creeping close to our border the last fortnight. Perhaps they're just following the road as close as possible on their way to Storm's End, but they've come to close to the city this time for my liking. Clegane will dispose most of them and drive the rest back to Casterly Rock," his father told him.

Jon felt his frustration with the king, ever present right beneath the surface these days, rising up again. He did his best to hold it back. He didn't want to fight with Rhaegar, not on the eve of Jon Connington's funeral service, not when they were sitting together for the first time in almost four months without arguing bitterly. Inside, though, he fumed silently.

Why would Rhaegar not trust _him _with his own battles and soldiers yet? Why wasn't he allowed to ride out in the king's name and fight with the other men, like Prince Steffon did, or Robb Stark? He was trained the same as any other knight or soldier, had been prepared his entire life to command troops as a future king. Why did his father hold him back?

He looked away from the king and said nothing, not trusting himself to speak and ruin the evening for his mother. He could feel Rhaegar watching him silently as he looked out instead over Blackwater Bay. The sun had almost completely disappeared beyond the horizon now, and the waters appeared as black as their name suggested in the fading light.

"But your Uncle Ned should be here soon, Jon, did Dany tell you? Knowing my brother they'll ride quick and hard rather than slow in a large wheelhouse, so a month, maybe a few days more." Lyanna told him, and her gray eyes, a mirror of his own, shone with happiness.

He knew how much she missed her brother, and Uncle Benjen as well all the way across the North at the Wall. Visits, as rare as they had been during the long years of war, were something Lyanna cherished and the next few months were sure to bring her joy between the celebration of his eighteenth nameday and Daenerys's wedding to Robb. He reached out and took her hand in his, smiling at her even as he continued to avoid his father's gaze.

"She did, and then blushed for ten minutes when I mentioned Robb Stark." Jon told her solemnly, earning himself another orange from across the table.

"Leave her alone, Jon. One day soon some girl is going to make _you_ blush and then you'll understand."

"I've met plenty of pretty girls so far and not a single one to make me turn as red as a Tully's hair." Jon declared. His mother rolled her eyes again and his father snorted derisively.

"Careful, son. The gods have a twisted sense of humor. We all live to reap our own words one day." Rhaegar told him. Jon smiled at his mother and said nothing.

What words had Rhaegar lived to regret, he wondered? He was sure there were many. Had he once proclaimed Princess Elia of Dorne the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, only to meet Lyanna Stark of Winterfell months later and lament his own haste? Had he looked at his eldest son, the first Aegon, and sworn he would protect him, only to try and fail when he had to make the impossible choice between staying in King's Landing with Lyanna, the new wife pregnant with his child, and following Princess Elia to Dragonstone to protect her and the two children he already had? Perhaps that was why he tried so hard to keep Jon from the war. Maybe he couldn't bear to lose another child, another Aegon.

Not for the first time did he wonder why his mother had given him that name, after the murder of his older brother and sister. Lyanna Targaryen was the furthest thing from malicious or cruel, so he assumed it must have been out of respect, the Stark sense of duty, to Rhaegar's deceased children. He had never asked though, unwilling to disappoint his father or sadden his mother. And while they had named him Aegon, it was a name rarely spoken. He had been called Jon as long as he could remember, and the name Aegon sounded almost foreign in his own mind, as though it had truly belonged only to his older brother and never to him.

"Have you decided on a new Hand of the King, brother?" Daenerys asked softly.

Rhaegar sighed deeply. He leaned his head back against the high cushions and for a moment his father seemed much older then he was. The darkening night cast deep shadows across his handsome face, and his long hair seemed gray rather than Targaryen silver-white.

Jon felt bad for him then, belatedly, and realized suddenly how selfish he had been in his own grief. Jon Connington had been his father's friend long before he'd let a sullen prince bemoan all his teenage woes and frustrations to him. He had fought and served with Rhaegar for years, long before they were king or hand.

Jon had no trusted soldiers or close friends like that. But he had Dany, and so he imagined what it would feel like to lose her. The thought alone was unbearable. He decided to go easy on his father, at least for now.

"I'm sure you both know that I'll ask Ned Stark when he and his family get here. I have other advisers, but none I trust to be half so loyal or honorable. This war has waged on far too long with no end in sight. Ned and I started this war. I need him here to help me end it." Rhaegar told them grimly.

Rhaegar and Lyanna left soon after to save the men on the training yard from Torren and his practice sword, and Jon retired soon after to his own chambers. Exhausted though he was from keeping near constant vigil over the Hand's body the last two days, sleep eluded him when he finally fell across his bed. He lay staring up at the vaulted ceilings, watching the play of light that drifted from the city of King's Landing through the open windows. He thought of Aegon and Rhaenys, Rhaegar's collateral damage from the choices he had made. He thought of the cousin he had never met, Sansa Stark, taken by Robert Baratheon at two weeks old. Was that his uncle's punishment for siding with Rhaegar and Lyanna? And Lyanna, happily married to the man she'd loved but haunted by the children she had damned with her own choices.

_"Careful, son. The gods have a twisted sense of humor. We all live to reap our own words one day."_

Did the consequences end there he wondered? Or did they spiral on and on for everyone around them, everyone affected by the choices made almost twenty years ago? His thoughts grew more and more detached as sleep finally came for him. The last conscious thought he remembered having as he watched shadows dance across the ceiling was of his father's face, and Jon wondered drowsily if the gods had any cruel choices in store for him one day.


	4. Sandor

**Sandor**

Crossing Lannister borders was like as not a shit fucking idea, but the king never sent the Hound on a mission where he wanted stealth or meticulous planning. King Rhaegar wanted to send the Lannisters a message that the stretch of much disputed and embattled Goldroad between the two regions was not to be crossed lightly.

Sandor had led his men on a hard pursuit up the Goldroad, across Blackwater Rush, briefly crossing into Martell territory before the road veered northwest into the westerlands. A smarter man might have stopped when he galloped past the first red and gold banners streaming in the wind alongside the Goldroad.

Sandor unsheathed his longsword, swinging it in a great arc as he rode, slicing the bannerpole in half and letting the Lannister standard flutter to the ground behind him. It was quickly trampled underfoot by the two dozen soldiers close on his heels.

The band of Lannister soldiers they pursued were decimated in number between the bloody battle on the Goldroad and the few that had been picked off over the last two days, but they didn't call Sandor Clegane the Hound with no reason. Once he had the scent he was committed to the chase. The soldiers were fleeing, nearing the safety of Silverhill castle near the border between the westerlands and the Reach, but injuries had begun to slow them and Sandor's men would have them run down in only a few more minutes.

He spurred Stranger on, faster and harder, eager to wash his hands of Lannister lands he despised and return to King's Landing. The cramped, humid city wasn't somewhere he relished calling home, but it was the only thing he'd known for eighteen years. The rooms he'd been assigned by the king for years of service were free and clean, the whores were cheap and not too dirty, the wine plentiful as water.

They were nearing the borders of Silverhill, he recognized the deep, rolling valleys and steep hills where mining had given the lands their name, gaining on the Lannister soldiers with every stride, when he saw the flash of red and gold out of the corner of his eyes. There, a blur through the trees to his left, keeping pace with him and his men. He didn't turn his face, unwilling to give away his notice, but it appeared to be only a single rider. A foolish one at that, and soon to be one more dead fool for the crows. He signaled his men behind him wordlessly to continue the pursuit before turning Stranger with a tug of the reins and plunging into the underbrush between towering elm trees that lined the road.

He emerged almost on top of the horse and rider, and the golden dun mare screamed in fright when Stranger snapped viciously at it's neck and face. It reared back in it's panic and sent it's rider tumbling unceremoniously to the ground at Stranger's feet.

Sandor unsheathed the longsword at his side, swung it high, moments away from cutting down the soldier trying desperately to scramble away when the red cloak caught between the ground and their hands, falling around their shoulders.

Long copper red hair, high cheekbones above pouty, bow shaped lips and deep blue eyes that stared up at him now in panic.

"Seven fucking hells." Sandor cursed violently, pulling Stranger back with a jerk of the reins that would leave the temperamental beast irritated at him for some time.

Whoever this girl was she was no soldier, and while Sandor wouldn't give two shits about killing some dumb fuck weaponless Lannister man, he hadn't yet stooped to cutting down women, red and gold cloak or no.

"What the fuck are you doing out here, girl? You got a death wish chasing Targaryen soldiers like that?" He snarled down at her. She blinked once, twice, opening her mouth to say something before closing it with a snap. Those wide blue eyes moved back and forth across his face and belatedly he realized he was still wearing the fearsome metal helm, shaped like a snarling hound. It was a far sight prettier then the ruin underneath though so the girl had no idea how lucky she was. When she didn't answer him he growled in irritation, letting Stranger's powerful black legs come a little closer to her as the stallion kicked at the ground, anxious to be on their way once more.

"Speak up, girl, and be quick about it. Were you following us on some cunt Lannister's orders? Stupid bastard if so, you're shit at tailing anyone."

Her eyes narrowed at that and she glared up at him with far more disdain then he figured a girl had a right to in her place. She was ignoring Stranger now and her initial fear seemed to be fast receding.

"If I'm shit at tailing anyone, why is it you nor your men noticed me behind you the last three leagues?" She responded with a haughty toss of hair over her shoulders that left him itching to snatch her off the ground so fast her head spun.

"If you were any good at it you'd have stayed behind us instead of giving yourself away like that. So I'll ask again – did some dumb fuck Lannister set you after us, hoping we'd let you go when we caught you instead of coming themselves?" Sandor growled again.

The girl practically glowered back at him now from her seat in the dirt and leaves.

"No, they did not. I'm hardly some serving girl to be ordered about by mere soldiers," she replied. Sandor wondered irritably how it was possible for a person to look down their nose at him from the ground at his feet but this girl was managing.

"Not some serving girl? Then maybe a village whore, looking to make some coin after the battle is over? Not the first of your kind, trailing behind the soldiers for a few scraps," he sneered back. Sandor knew as he said the words that they were far from the truth. This girl screamed high bred bitch, from the expensive material of her clothes to her cultured accent. It had only taken a few moments of interaction to realize he was dealing with some noble's daughter and very likely no threat to him or his men. His blood was hot from the promise of battle though and she had managed to piss him off before she even opened her pretty little mouth. He could have ridden off and left her in a snooty pile of her own skirts but watching her mouth drop open and her eyes spark in fury was the most fun he'd had in ages, even better then killing Lannister men.

"Were I a whore I'd still be too expensive for the likes of _you. _You would be lucky to even glance my way were we in the city surrounded by Lannister soldiers," she replied disdainfully. Her face might have been carved from stone if not for the fury in her eyes. Sandor gave a bark of laughter and it sounded rusty to his own ears. The girl had a lot of nerve for a gentile noblewoman, he would give her that.

"Maybe so girl, but this is no city and the only Lannister soldiers for leagues around are the ones my men are running down like dogs with tails tucked between their legs. So what's to stop me making you scream like a whore out here with no one to care?" He growled. The threat was empty and rape wasn't something Sandor cared for or condoned in his own men, but it would be amusing to see her shrink back again and close that infuriatingly uptight mouth of hers.

Whatever fear she had possessed when he first appeared though seemed to have all but disappeared. She regarded him coldly, dispassionately.

"I've known worse then the likes of you, and it will take far more then threats to intimidate me."

Sandor said nothing, staring down at her on the forest floor below him. She held his gaze unflinchingly, and though she couldn't see his ruined face behind the monstrous helm he still had to give her credit for her bravery, if it could be called that. It seemed to border on sheer insanity. As the moments turned to minutes and he made no move to dismount or harm her, she seemed to reach some internal conclusion of her own.

She rose gingerly from the ground, as ladylike in her movements as she was in her pretty words. She didn't even look at him as she brushed soil and debris from her skirts and cloak, acting for all the world as though he was no longer there. She looked around with a frown of annoyance, no doubt cursing him elegantly in her head at the loss of her mare, before tossing her mane of fiery red hair over her shoulder and striding off in the vague direction of Silverhill.

Well she would have strode, if not for the pronounced limp in her right leg that was making every step a rather undignified lurch. Sandor watched in faint amusement and mounting annoyance. He had a strangely strong feeling that this girl would drag her finely bred ass all the way to Casterly Rock if it meant keeping her head held high. He snorted at the picture before spurring Stranger to catch up with her.

"Are you planning on dragging that foot from here to Lannisport, girl?"

"Does it concern you at all, Ser? Unless you're planning to rape or kill me, and it would seem not, I can't fathom your reason for following me," she retorted.

"I'm no 'Ser', girl, and if you stick your nose any higher in the air you're going to miss what's in front of you and trip over your own feet."

She stubbornly ignored him, mouth set in such a determined scowl as to rival some of his own.

"And how are you to know I don't plan on taking your noble ass right back with me to King's Landing? Captives are a casualty of war, girl. Out here near Silverhill borders, might be you're some Serrett spawn... what are you looking at?"

He had glanced down as they went and she was no longer beside him. Sandor glanced behind him with a scowl to find the girl rooted in place, staring at him wide eyed once more.

"To King's Landing? You would truly take me with you to King's Landing?" She asked in a rush of words so fast he almost missed them.

"You so eager to get taken captive, girl? I know Lannister's are shit for anything but gold but it's a far sight better than being a war hostage," he told her.

Her laughter was sudden and seemed to catch even her off guard. She doubled over, one dainty hand over her mouth and one clutching her stomach as she took great gasping breaths amid the unexpected onset of mirth.

Sandor watched her now in outright confusion.

In the past twenty minutes she had gone from frightened and cowering on the ground, to prideful and incensed, cold and austere, and now she appeared to have completely taken leave of her senses as he threatened to kidnap her to an enemy kingdom.

Sandor turned his head in the direction his men had went along the Goldroad and for the first time registered the sound of fighting in the distance, not far ahead. He cursed violently. His men had caught up with them and he was here, wondering why in seven fucking hells he hadn't ridden away from this girl as soon as the cloak fell off her pretty red hair.

He looked back at her again.

He should leave her here, injured leg and his own tarnished sense of honor be damned. He couldn't put his finger on it, couldn't pinpoint the source of his growing unease, but this girl was a complication. Something about this entire situation was setting off alarms in his head. Why was this high born lady following enemy soldiers? Why was she alone, past the borders of the nearest lord's lands? Why was she so blatantly unbothered in the face of death and almost jubilant at the thought of captivity? The answer was there, so close he almost taste it but...

"If I asked you in truth to take me to King's Landing with you, would you do it?"

She was no longer laughing. There was an honest sort of vulnerability on her face that Sandor was unsure what to do with. All her haughty pretense and airs were gone and her eyes seemed to beseech him. What for, he couldn't say. He cursed again. There was no time to stand here and contemplate the matter further. He urged Stranger forward until the horse was alongside her and she was gazing up at him, eyes locked on his unflinchingly behind his monstrous helm.

"If you're so eager to throw yourself to the wolves, girl, far be it from me to stop you. But my men are up ahead fighting your soldiers and I've wasted enough time here."

He stretched out a gloved hand, mentally berating himself, knowing he was missing something obvious and important but his mind was up the road with the battle and blood and he couldn't focus on the mystery before him.

She looked at the proffered hand for just long enough he was about to yank it back and leave her there. Then she reached out, hesitantly, and placed a pale, dainty hand in his own much larger paw. Sandor didn't give her time to rethink, just hoisted her up with a grunt. She squealed but placed a hand on the saddle horn and managed to kick her left leg up clumsily over Stranger's back. Her skirts were rucked up around her thighs in a decidedly unladylike manner, but to her credit she didn't seem to care. She pulled her cloak tight about her with one hand and grabbed for the saddle horn again as Sandor wheeled Stranger around and tore back through the brush and the trees to find the Goldroad.

Sandor had done and seen a lot of things in his twenty-eight years, but galloping into battle with a lady in his arms was decidedly not one of them. In fact if he had ever actively tried to avoid a single scenario in his entire life, this would be it. He was sure there were stories and songs somewhere of dashing cunt knights doing this exact fucking thing and the thought alone was enough to have him grinding his teeth audibly in irritation. He was no fucking knight and this _lady _seemed to be a few ships short of the whole fleet.

He was thankful for his helm as it prevented that long, fiery hair from whipping him in the face as they rode. His chain mail and leathers also prevented him from feeling her against him or between his legs, and he told himself stubbornly he was grateful for that as well. High born bitches with bad attitudes were about the last thing Sandor was interested in dealing with, and no amount of beauty would change that.

He pushed Stranger hard and fast and within minutes they were riding up on the scene of the battle. Or rather the end of the battle. The last of the men were huddled in a tight circle, their mounts dead or disappeared, and his men bore down on them mercilessly. He thought he heard the girl gasp but she made no move to avert her gaze or draw away. Perhaps she'd seen worse. She'd certainly seen something, elsewise she wouldn't be on a horse with the Hound and offering herself up to an enemy king.

The last man died with a gurgle of blood at his lips as Sandor approached. He counted his own. One had ridden ahead to scout, and they had lost another in the skirmish. His mount appeared to be unharmed. Sandor swung himself off Stranger and led the horse to the bay gelding. The girl looked down at him in silent question. His men were looking at him, too. Well, mostly they were looking at the girl. _Dumb cunts, _he thought irritably. If they'd had to deal with her mouth they wouldn't be half so awestruck.

"It's a long ride to King's Landing, girl. You ride with me and I'll end up tossing you into Blackwater Rush before we get halfway there," he told her. The men were exchanging confused looks. He didn't bother explaining it to them. Fuck, he hadn't explained it to himself yet. Another soldier would have killed the girl or worse before he left her body back in those woods. A good man might have just left her to make her way home. He had no business making her problems his own.

Even as he berated himself he reached up and caught her about the waist, lifting her effortlessly from Stranger's back and swinging her onto the gelding in the same motion. She was tall for a woman, almost to his shoulders, but her cloak and gown made her seem sturdier than she was. She felt as light and delicate in his hands as a feather. Nothing more than a little bird clasped in his hands.

"You keep making threats like that, you know, but I think your bark is worse than your bite," she observed mildly with that impassive expression he was becoming used to.

"You'd better hope so, little bird. Otherwise you're more stupid than you seem, asking me to take you to King's Landing. Could be I've known the wrong ladies all this time but I'm fucking convinced there's just something wrong with your head."

She actually seemed to mull it over thoughtfully.

"It's possible, I suppose. Or perhaps once you see the real monsters you learn who to truly be afraid of."

"Little bird, don't try and tell me you've seen the real bad out there in the world. You wouldn't know a monster if it were staring you right in the face." Sandor said as he moved once more to Stranger's back.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You don't know what I've seen. And my name is not 'little bird.'" She told him icily.

"Well, _little bird, _since you haven't deigned to tell me your name in between following Targaryen soldiers and begging me to take you hostage, you'll just have to answer to what I call you."

"Oh pardon me, _Ser_, I apologize! Between being thrown from my horse, twisting my ankle and listening to you growl and complain about everything you see, it must have slipped my mind. My _name _is San-"

"Clegane! Soldiers coming this way from Silverhill! No more than a dozen but if we linger it'll likely be more!" Mallott, the one who had been scouting ahead, called out to him as he galloped hard back towards their men. Sandor swore. If it weren't one thing today it was a bloody other. He was starting to feel an ache in his temples that wouldn't go away. Her fault, he was sure of it.

"A fucking border guard, I'm sure. Let's get out of here before they show up. If they're gone too long the cunt who lives in that castle will start sending real soldiers." Sandor turned Stranger to go but as he did he caught a look on the girl's face he hadn't seen yet. The initial alarm he'd seen when he rode her down paled in comparison to the sheer terror there now. He frowned, leaned forward in the saddle to reach out for the reins and pull her closer. She cried out in real fear, shrinking away from him and causing the gelding to stamp backwards nervously.

"Seven hells, girl, what is it now?" He growled, his patience a thin thread about to snap.

"Clegane. That's what he called you."

"I heard him. That's my name, girl. Is there a problem?"

But he already had a swiftly forming suspicion what the problem was. Seconds later, she confirmed it.

"Do you have a brother?"

_Fuck._

"Aye, little bird, I have a brother. Big and mean and a lot scarier than me. Looks like you already know that, though." Sandor told her. Perhaps he'd been too hasty in telling her she had never met a true monster. Anyone who met Gregor knew exactly what he was. Again, he wondered at her seeming desperation to get away from these lands. Just how well did she know his big brother, exactly? The thought didn't sit well with him. He guessed he could add that to the growing pile of shit that bothered him about the girl.

Again, he moved closer, attempted to reach for the reins. And again she jerked back, looking at him now with all the fear and revulsion he was accustomed to in women. It seemed strange on her face though, and he realized belatedly it was because he was seeing it for the first time. She had looked at him in disdain, in anger and contempt, but not horror.

There was nothing to say. Sandor had never been much for talking and he had no honeyed words for the girl. He wasn't his brother but he would never be able to convince her of that. The only thing he could do was continue to do what Gregor wouldn't have, as he'd tried to do his whole life.

"We have to go, now. If you want to go to King's Landing, you come with us. You'll be safe. Or you wait here for that border guard to come find you and take you home." He told her with finality.

She was shaking like a leaf, so hard he wondered if she might blow away in the wind. She looked longingly down the Goldroad, towards King's Landing. Gripped the reins tight in her hand, seemed to teeter on the edge of the decision. Then she looked at him again and seemed to shrink in on herself, all her earlier fire and bravery gone as though it had never been. She shook her head once, twice, refusing to speak.

That was it, then.

Sandor turned away.

"Let's ride."

The men looked between him and the girl uneasily, glancing at one another as they each waited on someone else to speak up. Finally, Alyn did.

"Clegane, should we really just leave her here, after what she's seen? If it were a man-"

"She's not a man though you dumb cunt, and what does it matter what she saw? She watched men die. She's going to watch more die if we stay here waiting on that fucking guard."

"But Clegane-"

Sandor moved fast, reaching out and yanking the man forward with a hand twisted in his chain mail.

"One more word and I'll leave your body here to rot with the Lannisters. You ride with me, you're killing men. Not little girls who can't fight back." Sandor told him, his voice almost soft but the threat a hard promise. Alyn nodded quickly, breathing fast, face pale. Sandor let him go.

"For King's Landing."

He spurred Stranger forward in a fast gallop, eager to be far away from this place and even further away from her. His men followed, falling into formation behind him.

He didn't look back.


	5. Sansa: Part One

**Sansa**

**Part One**

_Stupid._

The word echoed over and over again in her head.

Just when she thought she was finally wising up, learning from her mistakes and getting smarter. Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she furiously blinked them away, stubbornly refusing to lose that battle as well.

_Stupid._

The first opportunity she'd had in almost sixteen years, nothing between her and freedom but a long stretch of road and dead Lannister soldiers.

And _him._

And she'd let it slip through her fingers all because of a few bad memories and fear of the unknown.

She deserved this place. She deserved Casterly Rock and Storm's End, Steffon Baratheon and both of his terrible parents. She was sure the rest of her family, far North and again forever beyond her reach, would never have been so cowardly. The Baratheons wanted her to think so but Jaime had always spoken highly of her father and brother's bravery on the battlefield and Tyrion would sometimes tell her little things about the rest of them, gossip he had picked up among the whores and the smallfolk. It was Tyrion who had told her how Catelyn Stark slit the throat of the wetnurse who handed Sansa over to King Robert's soldiers, of her little sister, Arya, who had her own Bravosi swordsman to train her, how her youngest brothers, Bran and Rickon, would swear to anyone listening that they would follow in Robb's footsteps and bring their sister home one day.

She imagined how disappointed they would all be if they knew she'd had the opportunity to come home of her own power and she had cowered instead.

Distantly it seemed she heard the chair to her left scrape along the stone floor, the sound of someone sitting next to her at the table.

"No matter how hard you stare at those eggs, I'm afraid they won't disappear until you've ate them." Tyrion said.

"They will if I command the servants to take them away."

"Which you're not going to do. You've grown skinny enough as is. Eat, Sansa."

"Is that a command, my lord?" She asked wearily. Tyrion eyed her in surprise. Sansa knew he had only been teasing her but she couldn't bring herself to smile back this time.

"Consider it a concerned suggestion. You've barely eaten since we returned last week to Casterly Rock. You've been engaged to my nephew for two months, surely now is a little late to start protesting." Tyrion replied, observing her carefully.

Sansa said nothing and took a small bite of eggs instead.

Her lack of appetite had nothing to do with her upcoming marriage, though thinking of _that_ event on top of everything else was sure to make what little food she'd eaten come right back up. All she had been able to think about for the last week was her lost chance at freedom, surely a one in a million opportunity. The gods had never seen fit to grant her many blessings, neither the old or the new. She was sure they wouldn't waste their time again.

She forced another bite between her lips.

"Sansa. If you won't tell me what's wrong, I've little chance of making it better." Tyrion told her, and she might have laughed then but it would seem unkind. There were precious few people in the world who showed her any true concern and Tyrion was one of them. She ate another bite of eggs, slowly, knowing it would please him to see her make the effort.

"It's no matter, my lord. I enjoyed the trip to Silverhill and was merely sad to see it end. I expect it shall be the last time I'm permitted to visit." Sansa finally replied, trying to inject a small amount of sincerity into her tone but fearing it was lost to the bitterness of her words.

"Now that is something we can hardly say for certain. While we both know life will be more... strict in the capitol, I am sure that with time they will at least-"

"Grow tired of me? Find someone more amusing to play their clever little games with? Unless they get their hands on Lyanna Targaryen herself, I doubt that. And if they should grow bored with me, then what? Who do you think they will pass me off to?" Sansa interrupted him coolly.

She knew that it wasn't polite, that it was not her usual behavior. But something in her felt changed after her near escape. She felt almost reckless with her growing frustration where before she had simply been resigned. To have come so close to freedom, only to be too scared to chase it... well, she had lost her chance, and knowing what lie in store for her was now that much harder to accept.

"Sansa, I know better than most how unpleasant they will make life for you in the capitol. But you will be Steffon's wife, the mother of his children, and the future queen of the Stormlands. Those are titles much more respected than the daughter of Ned Stark, niece of Lyanna Targaryen, and hostage of the king. They will not be so quick to harm you when you are well and truly bound to them by blood." Tyrion told her.

As grateful as Sansa was that she had been mostly raised at Casterly Rock by Jaime, Tyrion, and even Tywin to a degree... she almost wished in that moment that she had been kept in the capitol instead. The king and queen both hated her, their entire court mocked her and the Mountain terrified her... but at least she might not have recognized the lie in Tyrion's eyes.

"Are you lying to make me feel better, or is it for yourself?" She asked him quietly.

Tyrion smiled sadly.

"Mostly Jaime and I worried we were doing a terrible job raising the little girl they left with us all those years ago. Now I fear we did our job too well."

Sansa pushed her chair back and stood.

"I apologize, my lord. Truly, I have little appetite this morning. I beg you will excuse me." She said with all the grace she could muster. Tyrion said no more and she left the Great Hall.

Casterly Rock was the most magnificent castle Sansa had ever seen. Even Highgarden with it's sprawling fields of golden roses and lovely white stone walls could not compare to the richness of the Lannister stronghold. The golden stone shone in both sunlight and candlelight. It's halls and rooms were decorated with splendor dating back to the Age of Heroes, and what was not there was displayed in the Golden Gallery, a magnificent section of the castle dedicated to the Lannister's gilded ornaments and walls. The waves could be heard far below the castle walls as they broke against the Rock, the sound like distant thunder over Sunset Bay. It was a beautiful place, there was no denying it.

But despite it's golden shine, the castle had never held any warmth to Sansa. Only it's people, Jaime and Tyrion and occasionally even Tywin's presence brought comfort. Not today, though. Right now she wanted to be as far from Lannisters as possible, and to forget for just a little while longer that her life had never been her own.

The godswood at Casterly Rock was ironically the least impressive part of the estate. Sansa only had a handful of others from her own experience to compare it to and nothing but stories of the true Northern weirwoods, but she knew it greatly paled in comparison to the rest. It was small, barely large enough for the single, twisted weirwood and a few lone elm trees to offer the illusion of sanctuary.

Still, Jaime had commissioned her a little gray bench with soft white cushions for her own personal use when she was only a girl and Tyrion had ordered the addition of a very small garden of sorts beneath the lonely trees. And while he had never confirmed it to be his doing nor likely ever would, Sansa had long suspected Tywin himself of ordering the low, gray stone walls that surrounded it all, and the small golden gate she opened now. The little bench was just slightly too small to be comfortable, though she remembered feeling like a queen on it when she was younger. Sansa was sad to realize she had outgrown it. She couldn't remember when it happened, or indeed having noticed at all before now.

She sighed and looked around at the familiar surroundings.

Perhaps she would never know what the godswood of Winterfell looked like, covered in white snow but heavy with warmth from it's hot springs, but here she could imagine it. Privately, in her own mind where no one could shame her for it. And after nearly sixteen years Sansa could imagine quite a lot.

Mostly that was what she came here for now. As the years passed her prayers had turned hollow, and she would rather spend her time weaving lovely stories in her head of the life she might have known. In them she walked endlessly through the snow with no thought of summer days, and there was no prince waiting to take her away.

Sansa folded her legs underneath her and laid down, curled tightly into herself, uncaring of appearances. No one ever bothered her in the tiny godswood. She wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes, thinking of days long past when the godswood seemed as large as a Northern story and the little gray bench was all she needed to feel like a queen.


	6. Sansa: Part Two

**Sansa**

**Part Two**

"Of all the bloody people this side of the Narrow Sea he could have sent, why did it have to be that _infuriating _woman?" Jaime Lannister's irate voice echoed outside the large double doors and carried into the Great Hall. Sansa and Tyrion glanced at one another over their cups of morning tea and smothered identical smiles. Servants rushed to pull open the doors as they heard him approaching but Jaime got there first, flinging both of them in with enough force to send them crashing off the stone walls.

"For a man who just spent the last twenty minutes trying to decide between a gold and blue doublet or a gold and green doublet, you're doing an awful lot of bitching." Bronn said as he followed him inside, a good two feet behind. The distance must have been deliberate, Sansa thought, as Jaime swung around with an irritated growl and an outstretched fist. Bronn just smirked as he avoided the hit and sauntered past him to join Sansa and Tyrion at the table.

"Twenty minutes on a doublet?" Tyrion inquired, spreading a generous forkful of jam over his sliced bread.

"Don't get me started on how long it took him to fix his pretty golden hair. There's only so many ways a man can part it, and I just saw every fucking one of them." Bronn told them with a disgusted glare in Jaime's direction.

"Remind me again _why _it is my brother and I keep you around? I'm sure there must be a good reason we don't send you back to whatever shit speckled mud stain we dug you out of." Jaime said irritably as he yanked the chair across from Sansa out and dropped into it with a scowl.

"You keep me around to stop both your pampered lordly asses catching a Targaryen knife to the back every time you pull your pants down to take a shit."

"We pay you for that when we're traveling and on the battlefield. Why is it you always end up following us home and eating our food while you nag and complain? I don't think I can recall the last time we ate breakfast alone."

"I follow you home because that castle you and your lying little weasel of a brother keep promising me is still imaginary. And I sit at your table and eat all your food every day because if some cunt assassin sneaks in and tries to off you, I can at least make sure I get to it first before we split the price on your golden head."

Sansa laughed into her tea and Jaime glowered at her.

Bronn threw her a winning smile.

"I also like looking at a pretty face while I eat, and making the ladies laugh happens to be one of my specialties."

"You can keep your talent for amusing ladies to yourself and the brothels or I'll cut off something that will make it a very difficult past time." Jaime interjected, making a deliberate scene as he sliced a large piece of sausage into halves. Bronn only smiled wider as he snaked his fork out to steal a piece from Jaime's plate and pop it into his mouth.

"When will Lady Brienne arrive? It's been weeks since she visited, I'm so happy the king sent her again." Sansa asked, in a better mood now then she'd been for over a month. Female company was scarce at Casterly Rock, and Brienne of Tarth was one of the very few people Sansa knew who had never treated her with contempt or distrust.

"She sent word an hour ago that she would be here by noon." Jaime told her moodily, busy cutting his sausage into unrecognizably small pieces.

"I do hope you're going to be nicer this time, Jaime. The last time Brienne came you insulted her in the first five minutes and spent the rest of the visit following her around like a teenage boy trying to pick a fight." Sansa said with a frown. Tyrion choked on a bite of honeyed ham but tried manfully to pass it off as a cough.

"I did _not _follow her around, she just... happened to be everywhere I needed to go." Jaime retorted, avoiding the gaze of everyone at the table as he moved on from the mutilated sausage to his eggs.

"You _needed _to be outside her chambers at seven in the morning waiting for her to come to breakfast? Three days in a row?" Sansa asked in feigned surprise.

Tyrion lost the fight with his ham and laughed so hard he really _did _begin choking. Sansa leaned over to slap him on the back as she returned Jaime's glare with a delicately arched eyebrow.

"You know, I'm beginning to wonder whose side any of you are really on." Jaime complained.

"Yours, of course. We just think you'll be happiest if you're honest with yourself." Sansa replied immediately.

"Yeah, honest that you wanna fuck her." Bronn added.

"Don't worry, Jaime. I've spent my entire life fucking women bigger then me and I have no complaints so far." Tyrion finished.

Jaime looked mutinous.

"What business is she coming on this time, do you know?" Sansa asked before he could say anything else.

"I believe she's coming to discuss the issue of the Goldroad. We're having a hard time moving soldiers and supplies to Storm's End recently without going well off road into the Reach, which is slowing down troops and stopping caravans completely. Rhaegar has been sending soldiers further up the Goldroad, cutting us off before we detour around Blackwater Rush. It's been hard enough moving the caravans along the riverside these last few years but at least we created a path. He's stopping us before we get to it now, sending us through the hills and marshes." Jaime explained, finally calming down enough to eat the rather butchered remains of his food.

"I heard he's been keeping the Hound on those patrols the last few weeks. Has he crossed our borders again? Would we even know if he had?" Tyrion wondered out loud. Sansa tilted her head towards him in confusion, sipping her tea in silence. Who was the Hound?

"Wouldn't we be finding the trail of bloody corpses if he had? If Clegane was pursuing them that far up the Goldroad, we'd know it." Jaime replied.

The teacup fell from Sansa's fingers and shattered against the solid oak table, spilling over her stomach and lap.

"Clegane?" She choked, unprepared for the reminder of the massive warrior who had offered to take her home. No one was listening to her, however.

"Sansa! Are you all right, child?" Tyrion jumped from his chair with a speed that would have surprised her if her head hadn't been reeling.

"That tea was still burning hot, Sansa! What on Earth is the matter? Let's get you to your rooms and changed. You there, girl! Fetch the maester!" Jaime was at her other arm, urging her to her feet. She stood without resistance.

"You said Clegane was on the Goldroad, crossing Lannister boarders?" She asked him again, oblivious to the stains on her dress or any discomfort.

"Not that Clegane, girl. He's talking about the little brother, Sandor." Bronn told her. He had swept the broken pieces of the teacup away from her with his bare hands and wiped away the rest of the hot tea before the servants could even get to it.

"Little brother? So there _are _two of them?" She asked, picturing that twisted black metal helm he had worn. Now that she allowed herself to visualize it again, it had been in the shape of a snarling hound.

Jaime frowned down at her.

"What have you heard about the Clegane brothers?" He asked her.

"Ah, I just... that is, I- heard it from the soldiers at Silverhill, when they found me on the Goldroad last month. They mentioned him when they saw the dead men on the road, said it must have been the other Clegane brother." Sansa lied as believably as she could muster.

She hadn't told anyone the truth of that day, not a single soul. She trusted Jaime and Tyrion more than anyone and she knew they loved her like one of their own. But to tell them how she had almost escaped to Targaryen lands and left them to face the wrath of the king alone... she knew intuitively that was something to keep to herself. Love her they truly did but she was still a political hostage, and one they had been entrusted with guarding almost her entire life. While they might sympathize with her situation and what she was feeling, they would still tighten the invisible chains, keeping a more wary eye on everything she did. Knowing how close she was to marrying the prince, Sansa couldn't bring herself to sacrifice the little freedom she had carved for herself, not yet.

"Don't let it concern you, Sansa. The Hound is nothing for you to worry about. Silverhill is much closer to the borders than Casterly Rock, he would never come so far." Jaime said soothingly. She could have sobbed in frustration at that. Or maybe it was just the tea. Now that the shock was wearing off she was beginning to feel the burn across her stomach and thighs. Jaime and Tyrion escorted her to her chambers and the master came to look her over, mostly for the men's sake. He gave her a small jar of ointment to apply as needed and insisted she rest, at least until Lady Brienne arrived.

Sansa sat by the large bay windows that dominated the westernmost wall, overlooking Sunset Bay. While she sat, she replayed that day over in her head for what most have been the hundredth time. The early morning ride, stolen hours that were often hard to come by at a place so central to the kingdom as Casterly Rock. Silverhill was less people and far more space, all rolling hills and dense forests she could have happily explored for hours. No one to watch her every move or question her motives. Well, maybe that was because she had snuck out while Tyrion was away for the day dealing with unrest along the southern border. But the septa had made it very apparent after he left that she wanted nothing to do with a traitor's daughter, high born or no. It hadn't been so much _sneaking _anywhere as it had been strolling to the stables, saddling her horse and riding off while everyone who should have been watching her did their best to pretend she wasn't there.

She had rode all the way to the easternmost border that morning, where the Goldroad crossed into Lannister territory. Saw the great banner poles driven into the ground, red and gold standards flying high in the morning breeze. And that was where she stayed, rooted to the spot on the back of the fine dun mare, staring down the twisting and curving Goldroad so fixedly her eyes ached. The promise of freedom was so close, and nothing seemed to lay between but man made borders and the Lannister crest.

She was staring so hard, engrossed in her own fantastical thoughts, that she almost missed the sound of hoofbeats growing louder and louder as they approached. When she did realize she was very nearly too late to move out of the way, and so instead of galloping back down the road ahead of them, and unwilling to be noticed at any rate, she had driven the mare in between the trees and thick bramble until she was well and truly concealed.

When the men rounded the nearest turn and galloped past moments later, red and gold colors no more than a streak of blood through the trees before they were gone, Sansa breathed a sigh of relief. Or perhaps it was disappointment. Lannister colors were surely safer and the last thing she needed was to be caught by a band of daring enemy soldiers. And yet...

Were those more hoofbeats?

It sounded like more soldiers than before and the ground vibrated now with their approach. Had they been separated from the rest, she wondered? A rear guard while the others went ahead? No sooner then the thoughts began to form in her head were they dashed like the Lannister banners underneath the hooves of Targaryen soldiers as they thundered past. Sansa only caught a brief glimpse of the one leading them, a great armored man riding a snarling warhorse twice the size of her own mare.

She should have gone far out of their way, taken the southern border until she came to the Red Lake and followed it directly back to Silverhill. That would have been the smart thing to do.

Instead she found herself plunging through the low brush and the dense trees, not nearly enough room to run as that fearsome warhorse would need but her small mare navigated it with ease, having been bred to these lands. She caught up to them with relative ease and kept their pace through the trees, her eyes on that impossibly large Targaryen soldier leading the charge. She had only ever seen one man that size and he was a monster. Perhaps that was because he served King Robert, though. Most of the men who served him were the same way, just not big enough to do much about it. This man, though, she wondered if he were different.

_Clegane._

Sansa stared out at the golden waters of Sunset Bay and felt the tears finally fall for the first time in over a month.

_Sandor Clegane._

He might have been different. She would never know now.

Stupid.


	7. Brienne

**Brienne**

If he stared at her for a single minute longer, she was absolutely going to hit him.

She tried to ignore him, was doing her absolute best to make conversation with Tyrion and simply pretend he wasn't there. Even the sellsword, Bronn if she remembered correctly, was preferable to his smug smile and insufferable attitude. Brienne had journeyed to Casterly Rock twice before, and though this was only the third time and likely the final time, she was beginning to wish she'd told the king exactly where he could stick his command.

Unfortunately, making conversation was difficult while Jaime Lannister stared holes into the side of your head. Tyrion kept trailing off mid sentence, glancing back and forth between them in mystification, and the sellsword was laughing to himself every time the room went silent.

Brienne had nothing if not determination, though.

"Lord Tyrion, will the Lady Sansa be joining us this evening? It's been almost four months since our last visit, and I'm sure we have much to talk about." She ventured again, polite as she ever was.

Tyrion hesitated only briefly as he eyed her and his brother before shrugging his shoulders slightly and pouring himself a drink. Well, another drink. Brienne had counted two others in the hour since she'd arrived.

"She'll be down directly. I believe she took a short rest before your arrival. She was most eager to see you again, though. I'm afraid she gets little to no womanly company here at Casterly Rock." He replied.

Brienne nearly laughed at that herself.

"Well, if 'womanly' company is what she's seeking, I'm afraid I'm the least qualified woman in the Four Kingdoms to provide it. But I do have tales of battle and good bit of gossip from the borders I'm sure she'll enjoy hearing. I also brought her a case of Myrish oranges we had shipped across the Narrow Sea. My father has decided he prefers Dornish flavors and so we had plenty left over."

"Yes, I must agree with Lord Selwyn. Known for their craftsmanship the Myrish might be, but they should leave the fruit for their wines. I've never been able to abide the tang, and you can smell them before you even open the case." Tyrion said. Brienne opened her mouth to reply, and was abruptly cut off.

"Brienne of Tarth."

_He is the future lord of Casterly Rock. He is brother to the queen. Do not hit him, Brienne._

"Yes, Ser Jaime?"

"Do you _ever _wear dresses?"

_He is brother to the queen. Do not hit him._

"I'm not sure that's at all your business, Ser Jaime. But no, I prefer my armor."

"But you're not _wearing_ armor now. You're wearing... men's clothes, I believe. That's a man's tunic, and trousers underneath that... skirt."

_Do not hit him._

"I'm aware, Ser Jaime. I did dress myself, you see. Is there a point you're trying to make?"

"A point? No, I didn't think that far ahead. Why are you wearing so much blue with that brown tunic? Green would have looked much nicer."

He seemed genuinely put out, at her clothing of all things. Brienne closed her eyes and exhaled slowly through her nose. She tried to visualize the clear, sapphire waters of Tarth. Some place _calming_. That was what Lady Sansa had advised doing during her last visit, and Brienne was sure she must be an expert after sixteen years of dealing with Jaime Lannister.

"Don't mind him, he's just got a sword up his ass because he spent an hour agonizing over his own clothes this morning and now you don't even match." Bronn told her matter of factly. Brienne frowned. Honestly, half the time she had no idea what they were talking about here. Jaime opened his mouth to respond, and Brienne thought he looked the slightest bit embarrassed, but before he could say anything another voice behind her cut him off.

"Lady Brienne! It's been so long!"

Brienne let loose a sigh of relief and sent a quick prayer of thanks to the Seven. She rose with the men and turned to bow respectfully to Lady Sansa Stark as she crossed the room.

Sansa looked as lovely as Brienne remembered her, if a bit thinner underneath her red and gold silks. Lannister colors as always. Brienne was sure she had never been allowed the grays and whites of her own house. Soon she would be covered in Baratheon colors and one day her own house would be nothing but a distant dream.

"Too long, my lady. I trust you've been well? I heard reports you came dangerously close to battle on the Goldroad a month past." Brienne replied as they all resumed their seats. Sansa sat next to her, a welcome additional barrier between herself and Jaime should she feel the urge to hit him once more.

Sansa smiled, but Brienne noticed she did not quite meet her eyes when she spoke.

"Oh, hardly anything so dramatic. I was riding along the Goldroad and came upon the aftermath, that's all. My own horse was spooked and I fell. I'm not a very good rider, you see. Luckily one or two of the soldier's mounts were still alive, and Silverhill's boarder guard arrived directly and escorted me back to the castle. It was all terribly boring, I'm afraid." Sansa told her airily, waving a hand carelessly to illustrate her own words.

Brienne had always prided herself in preferring a hard truth to an easy lie. When she was seven and she ripped up all of her dresses and threw them into the lit fire in her chambers, she admitted it to her father rather than feigning ignorance. When Renly Baratheon asked her to dance and later told her of the bet the other lord's had made to who would take her virginity, she had faced the truth bravely rather than pretending surprise she did not feel. Jaime Lannister infuriated her and she had _never_ considered the murder of an innocent man before meeting him, but she refused to tell herself he was not the handsomest man she'd ever met, even more than Renly, and she respected him for the care and concern he showed his young Stark ward.

Brienne was not in the habit of lying very often. Which was, perhaps, why she was so skilled at noticing when other people did. And Sansa Stark was very much lying now, though the men seemed unaware of it.

"That is a relief to hear, my lady. If rumors are to be believed, the Hound was leading the party that crossed the borders near Silverhill. Only imagine what a man like that might have done to you if he came upon you alone." Brienne replied evenly, watching Sansa's face carefully.

The girl's eyes snapped to meet hers for the first time since entering the room. They were red rimmed and just the slightest bit puffy. Tyrion had said she was resting before Brienne arrived, but that was either a lie by Tyrion or one told to him by Sansa. The girl had been crying. Not that Brienne could fault her that, but she was surprised by it nonetheless. She did not know Sansa well, but the girl had always been surprisingly happy and impossibly cheerful for someone in her position. Was it the recent betrothal to Prince Steffon, or something more?

"You truly believe he would have done me harm?" Sansa asked quietly.

Tyrion replied before Brienne could choose her words.

"Why would he not? He's a hound in more than just name. He may not be Ser Gregor, but then few men are. A man doesn't need to fight in another's shadow when their own is so large. Sandor Clegane has a reputation for ruthlessness. It's why Rhaegar Targaryen keeps him so close. All kings think alike, you see." He told Sansa, pouring another drink as he did so. He did not take this one for himself, but offered it to the girl instead. She accepted it gratefully, hiding her face behind the goblet as she drank.

Brienne could deny nothing in Tyrion's words. She had yet to meet the Hound in battle herself, though the day looked to be fast approaching, but she had heard nothing over the years of else but his mercilessness. He slaughtered soldiers by the dozen and cut down experienced warriors like it was child's play. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, was widely acknowledged as the most skilled swordsman of recent ages, but the Hound was said to be savage and near as cruel as his brother.

"Sansa, he would never make it so far as Casterly Rock, I said so earlier. There's no reason to fear what he would or wouldn't do, love. Honestly, why any of us are giving him a second thought is beyond me. It won't be the Lannister army that eventually brings Sandor Clegane down, most likely his own brother. It's only a matter of time before Robert sends the Mountain to engage him if he's causing trouble on the borders." Jaime told Sansa in reassuring tones. His words did not seem to comfort her. Brienne sighed, knowing the news she had come bearing would not do so, either.

"Unfortunately that is not so, either. His Grace sent me here to gather a contingent of Lannister soldiers, to be joined by Tyrell and Stormlands men also. I will lead them, escorting the caravans and foot soldiers along the Goldroad. The Targaryen army has been cutting us off before we detour at Blackwater Rush and stopping us from getting to the path this side of the river. Reports say the Hound is leading those ambushes after crossing your own borders a month past. Whatever sort of man he may be, I have no intention of finding out. My orders are to protect the supply trail and if he gets in my way, to cut him down." Brienne told them in her usual matter of fact way.

The room grew very quiet as they all looked at Brienne, and Brienne busied herself doing anything besides meeting Sansa's wide eyed gaze, or Jaime Lannister's furious one. She found herself wishing belatedly that she had accepted Tyrion's earlier offer of wine, if only to have something to do with her hands.

Bronn spoke first.

"You mean to tell us you're going to fight the fucking Hound? You're a big woman, I'll give you that, but there's a difference between being big and being hard to kill. The Hound is hard to fucking kill. Why do you think your king won't ride out himself? He might be King I-Saw-Her-First, but he's still a warrior and he's led plenty of charges over the years. He's delegating this one, though. And why not to the other brother? Because he doesn't want to risk losing his champion, either."

Brienne said nothing. She knew he spoke the truth. She also knew that the king did not expect her to survive this mission, that it was merely his way of distracting Rhaegar while he devised a way around the problem. But he had given it to her, in his throne room surrounded by all of his guffawing knights and courtiers no less, his coldly perfect queen smirking at his side. It was that infuriatingly smug smile she thought of now. It was so much like Jaime Lannister's own cocky expression it set Brienne's teeth on edge. Almost as if thinking his name had alerted him, Jaime finally decided to interject his opinion.

"Were you born mad, woman, or did too much battle do it to you? You might be a capable fighter and I'm sure you can knock a grown man on his ass before he swings his sword, but the Hound isn't some ordinary soldier. Rhaegar would knight him and put him in his Kingsguard if he'd swear the vows, and I'd rather fight Arthur Dayne than face the Hound. At least Dayne would fight with some honor. Clegane will fight to win, no matter the methods. You'll fight nobly and good because that's the kind of person you are, and you'll die without making a fucking bit of difference. Is that what you want?" He looked so angry Brienne couldn't help being taken aback.

She didn't know much about Jaime Lannister, but what she did know were a mass of contradictions. Former Kingsguard to Aerys Targaryen, and the man the other side called Kingslayer, he had driven his sword through Aerys's back eighteen years ago, before Robert's Rebellion became the War of the Two Kings. The rumors why were endless; some said he was convinced to turn traitor by Robert Baratheon, some said Rhaegar had secretly paid him off to dispatch his father, some claimed he'd been protecting the son he was madly in love with from the father's rage. Whatever the reason, Rhaegar Targaryen had pardoned him of the murder, much to the shock and fury of many noble houses. He'd dismissed him from his Kingsguard and sent him back to his family, dishonored but alive. Two years later Jaime became caretaker to an infant Stark girl and spent the next sixteen years fighting Robert's war against his former king, raising the girl like a daughter, ruling Casterly Rock in his father's absence and adamantly refusing marriage, to Tywin Lannister's well known disapproval. Jaime Lannister famously didn't give a damn what people did or what they thought about him, though, and not for the first time since meeting him was Brienne absolutely baffled and annoyed by his interest in _her._

"His Grace gave me orders. Perhaps I'm no sworn knight like yourself, Ser Jaime, but I take my own vows seriously just the same. I swore to uphold the honor of my kingdom and my king and that's what I intend to do. As for the Hound, well, it won't be the first time a man has told me I couldn't do something and I don't intend for it to be the last." Brienne replied stiffly.

"So you'll die for a king who neither respects or cares for your sacrifice?" Jaime bit back furiously.

"I'll die for my own honor, the words I said and the vows I swore!_"_

"On a king's order that was likely no more than a jest at your own expense!"

"If it were a joke played on me by anyone, it was almost certainly your hateful sister who does nothing but sit at his side and whisper awful thoughts in his ear all day long! If you have such an issue with me dying, take it up with the queen! She seemed to get an inordinate amount of pleasure from the scene!"

Jaime froze and Brienne realized belatedly that she was yelling, something she rarely did, incensed by the nerve of this man to judge her when she was almost certain it was his malicious sister who wanted her dead.

Brienne had heard the sniggers and the gossip when she responded to the king's summons barely a month ago. They were all whispering about her recent trips to Casterly Rock, how Jaime Lannister followed her wherever she went, even waiting outside her room in the morning to escort her to breakfast. In truth he had been waiting there to pester her for a fight on the training grounds, but she had beaten him on the first day and he still showed up every morning after with one excuse or another until she took her leave. They all said she flirted with him outrageously, desperate for a husband and willing to degrade herself to get one, but Brienne didn't know _how _to flirt, or the first thing about seducing a man. And Brienne had known the moment she entered the throne room that the queen, who had never so much as spared her a glance in the years before, had heard every rumor and believed them implicitly, for she had glared at her with some vehemence Brienne almost took a step back. The look was gone almost as soon as it appeared, to be replaced with that simpering smile as her husband ordered Brienne to the current most dangerous place in all of Westeros with nothing but a small company of scrapped together knights and her own honor.

Brienne stood abruptly.

"If you'll excuse me, my lords, Lady Sansa. It was a long journey from the capitol and I'm wearier than I originally thought. I believe I'll go and rest before dining this evening. We'll have much to discuss on the appointment of soldiers. Until then." Brienne gave a small bow, mostly directed to Sansa, whose gaze she continued to avoid. Brienne had always prided herself for rarely telling lies, and here she was telling the same one Sansa must have told earlier that day to simply avoid the unwanted stares and loathsome sympathy.

She walked brusquely from the room, ignoring the servants as they rushed to open the doors for her, pushing them open with a great shove of her own. Her quarters was not far from the drawing room they had occupied and she marched there as swiftly as she could without drawing unnecessary attention. It was a relief to collapse onto the large bed, even if it was a little too soft for her tastes and covered in Lannister silks.

Brienne stared almost without seeing at the gilded golden ceiling above her.

She didn't _want _to die. Or more accurately, she didn't want to die fighting a man's war who inspired no loyalty in her, who treated her with contempt and ridiculed her the same as most every other man she had ever known. She wondered idly if the Hound felt the same way, if he were treated with the mockery and disdain Brienne had always experienced. She had heard the tales of his viciously scarred face, coupled with his savage behavior. Did his king treat him well? Did Rhaegar earn his allegiance or did he command it blindly? Brienne imagined dying might not be so bad if she were dying for someone she believed in. But dying fighting the Hound over a muddy strip of road for a king who couldn't remember her name without prompting seemed a pretty shitty way to go, even she had to admit.

There was a soft knock on the door. Brienne sighed irritably, hands clenching involuntarily as she imagined all manner of violence.

"Ser Jaime, I have no interest in fighting you, going hunting with you, drinking with you or otherwise spending time with you. Now_ please _leave me be until it's time to come eat." She said loudly, not bothering yet to rise from the bed. If she did she might be tempted to throw the door open and punch Jaime Lannister right in his smugly handsome face, and that would surely do her no more favors in his horrible sister's eyes than her supposed flirting had done.

"It's only me, Lady Brienne. I wonder if I might come in for a few moments?" Sansa's voice was small, almost timid. Brienne had rarely ever met a person as innately polite as she herself was, likely to apologize to a stone wall if she smacked into it, but Sansa seemed to be made of the same intrinsically courteous material. Brienne finally sat up with a sigh. She had come here seeking solitude, but it was hard to deny Sansa company when Brienne knew she had so little.

"The door is unlocked, my lady, please come in." She called out.

Sansa entered quietly, barely opening the door and slipping inside with hardly a whisper of sound. If Brienne were to hazard a guess she would say the girl had experience sneaking into and out of closed rooms but again, who could judge her? Her freedom here was nothing but a pretty illusion painted by Jaime and Tyrion over the years, an effort to make her feel at home in the lion's den.

"Please, have a seat, my lady." Brienne told her, gesturing to one of the richly appointed chairs near the bed. Sansa took it with murmured gratitude.

"I apologize for leaving so suddenly, it was very rude of me. I simply couldn't stand to argue about the matter anymore. It's pointless and won't change what I must leave here and do. I trust you'll forgive me." Whether she was asking forgiveness for leaving the drawing room so suddenly or for departing Casterly Rock to her own probable death, Brienne wasn't certain.

"Is there no other way?" Sansa asked her softly. Her wide blue eyes were filled with sadness and it seemed to Brienne she had aged very much in the short time since they had last seen one another.

"None that I can see, my lady. If I were to refuse the king's command, at best I would be ridiculed for masquerading as a knight, shamed for turning craven, and at worst I would be sentenced to death for defying a royal order." Brienne replied resignedly. It was not as though she hadn't considered refusing the order herself, she had simply dismissed it as a credible alternative.

Sansa was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, looking very much like she had something to say but seemed unsure how to say it. Brienne remained silent, waiting patiently. Sansa had always reminded her a bit of a wild animal. Not in that she was dangerous, but if you made the wrong move or approached her too fast, she seemed likely to bolt rather than let you in.

"Lady Brienne, if I... told you something, something that I can't tell Jaime or Tyrion, would you keep it in confidence? I don't believe they would be angry at me, but they would... take precautions and worry unnecessarily." Sansa told her carefully.

"I give you my world, Lady Sansa. Whatever you say will stay between us." Brienne answered truthfully. She was under no oath to the Lannisters, and Sansa Stark had been kinder to her in a few short months than most people had been her entire life.

"I didn't tell the entire truth about what happened on the Goldroad. I _was _riding, and I _did _get thrown from my horse, and by the time Silverhill's soldiers arrived I _was_ alone. But before that, I... encountered Sandor Clegane." Sansa said.

Brienne did her best to keep her face free of shock, but it was a challenge. Sansa watched her cautiously as she gathered her thoughts.

"Encountered him? As in, you spoke to him?" Brienne asked after a few moments.

"Yes. When I heard the soldiers approaching, I got off the Goldroad to avoid being seen. But when I saw Targaryen soldiers go by, I... I don't know what came over me. I followed them. All I could think about was... was..." Sansa trailed off, her eyes filling with tears.

"Going home." Brienne finished. Sansa nodded forlornly.

"I started trailing them through the trees, I even caught up with them. But I wasn't being very careful and San- the Hound noticed me. He rode me down and my horse threw me. He thought I was a soldier, was about to cut me down but..." she trailed off again, a faraway look in her eyes.

"...but?" Brienne prompted her gently.

"When he saw I was a woman, he pulled back. At first I was very frightened. He's so _large_, Brienne. You're very tall, but he must have two or three hands on you, and he looked almost too big for that warhorse he rides. I never did see his face, he wears this helm, shaped like a snarling hound. I was sure he was going to kill me or worse, but he never even dismounted. He asked me if I was a Lannister spy. Really, he's got _quite _a foul temper, and then he had the nerve to accuse me of being a whore! But he never truly appeared interested in hurting me. I tried to walk but my ankle was twisted in the fall, and he actually seemed... concerned, in his own strange way. He followed me for a bit, made conversation and some rather empty threats. But when he mentioned taking me to King's Landing I just... stopped thinking, my mind went completely blank. I asked him if he meant it, if he would really take me with him. H was surprised but finally he said if that's what I really wanted then he would."

"I didn't have time to think twice about it, he just pulled me onto that warhorse with him and rode off. That's when we came upon the end of the battle, where his men killed the last of the Lannister soldiers. He put me on one of the dead men's mares. Really, Brienne, he just... tossed me up there like I didn't weigh a thing. He was so _strong_. And everything was happening so quickly and we were about to leave, and I was going _home_... and then one of the men said his name and I just... froze. All that and we hadn't even exchanged names, you see. All I saw were the Targaryen colors and it never occurred to me to ask. I didn't even know the Mountain had a brother, but he told me that he _was_ and all I could think about was... was..." she trailed off again, and her tears were falling harder now, her breath coming harder and more ragged.

Brienne moved hesitantly from her perch on the edge of her bed to crouch in front of the girl. She had buried her head in her hands now and was sobbing desperately, shoulders heaving. Brienne tentatively reached out and placed a hand on one, trying to offer comfort but completely unsure how to do it. The bones along Sansa's back felt sharp underneath her fingers, and again Brienne realized how thin the girl had become.

Brienne had heard the stories, of course. Hardly even whispers, no one bothered to mind their tone for the daughter of a traitor. The king was known to summon Lyanna Targaryen's niece to court for the sole purpose of humiliating her publicly, and as she grew older that humiliation had crossed the line into outright abuse. Never at his own hand, of course. But when he was feeling particularly cruel he had been known to set the Mountain on her, in the middle of his throne room. Brienne had never witnessed the brutality herself, and she was unsure if she was grateful for that or not. She would never be able to keep her composure, would absolutely intervene and then likely lose her own head for her interference.

That was supposedly the only reason the beatings had stopped over the last couple of years. Jaime Lannister had been furious when he learned what was happening, always while he was away at battle. He had caused quite the scene by leaving command of his soldiers to that sellsword friend of his and riding to Storm's End alone upon hearing Sansa had been brought to the capitol. Brienne had heard he burst into the throne room and confronted the Mountain himself when he witnessed him beating the girl. The only thing that stopped King Robert from having his head then and there was the queen.

Cersei was furious at her brother, but she insisted Robert spare him as the main commander of the Lannister army, and to avoid alienating the Lannisters. The king slapped her then, his own queen, in full view of his entire court. But he let her brother go, and Jaime took Sansa straight back to Casterly Rock where Tywin subsequently insisted she remain. Two years had passed since then, before the king sent word that Sansa Stark was to be betrothed to his son and married within the year, and no amount of negotiating on Tywin's part had changed his mind.

"You've done nothing wrong, Lady Sansa. You wanted to go home, there's no sin in that." Brienne told her softly, awkwardly stroking her long red hair like she'd once seen Tyrion do in an attempt to soothe her. Sansa didn't stop crying, but after a couple of minutes her tears seemed to slow, and she became less frantic underneath Brienne's hand. When she spoke next it was muffled through her hands and thick with anguish.

"It's not that, not really. I feel terrible for trying to escape, leaving Jaime and Tyrion to face the king if I got away. But mostly, I just think about my family. How disappointed they would be that I could have gotten free but I was too scared of a big man with a scary family name. I'm so disappointed in_ myself_, Brienne. I could have been with my family by now. No Casterly Rock, no Steffon, no beatings. I can't take Jaime with me to the capitol, Brienne. And even if Tyrion comes, the queen won't defend him like she did Jaime. Once I'm there I'll have no one. I think I would rather die, Brienne, I don't think I can take it again."

Sansa looked up at her then, and her eyes were so bleak and empty it was frightening. Brienne was at a loss. She was sure Jaime or Tyrion would know what to say or do, but she had promised not to say a word about this to them and she would honor that vow. She cast about desperately for something, anything to make that hollow look disappear.

Then she remembered.

Brienne rose and strode quickly across the room, where she had placed the few items she'd traveled with from Storm's End. Her saddlebags, her weapons, and the small crate of Myrish oranges she had brought under the pretext of gifting them to Sansa. She pried the lid open with some difficulty, crinkling her nose as the overwhelming smell of the tangy fruit floated through the wood and assaulted her decidedly Westeros senses. The oranges had been a good cover. Hardly anyone this side of the Narrow Sea would open the crate when they could smell it's contents across a room. Brienne placed the lid to the side and plunged her hands into the contents, digging to the very bottom of the crate.

There, she felt it. Soft and silky smooth, folded tightly to prevent damage. She pulled it out carefully. The smell was strong on it but time would help air it out, even if Sansa wouldn't be able to wear it anywhere beyond her own chambers.

Brienne knelt again in front of Sansa's chair beside the bed. The girl was watching her in a vaguely dazed sort of way, not really registering anything she did. Brienne took one of her hands in her own and placed the gift there. Sansa blinked slowly, once, twice, before looking down at the offering.

"I had this made for you, my lady, after my last visit. Not here in Westeros, so I'm sure the material isn't the same as what they use in the North, but otherwise it should be similar. Tarth does a lot of business with the Free Cities, you see, and I requested this in person of a waremaster I'm acquainted with. It was made in Myr, and he delivered it to me personally at the bottom of a crate of Myrish oranges so no one would search it."

Sansa stared at the cloak in her hands in wonder, and Brienne was pleased to see the darkness retreating from her eyes as she'd hoped it would. She watched her unfold the cloth hesitantly, the soft material sliding through her fingers as it flowed to the floor in a waterfall of gray silk and soft white fur. It was as lovely as Brienne had hoped it would be. Truly, Myrish creations were of an altogether finer quality than Westeros produced, even if their fruits left much to be desired.

The cloak was supple but seemed to be made of a fine, strong weave, and it was lined with fur as pure as Northern snow. On the front were two identical gray clasps in the shape of snarling wolves. She had been very specific in her description of the clasps, and she noted in satisfaction that the waremaster had delivered.

Her thoughts were cut short the next moment as Sansa threw her arms around her shoulders. Brienne would have been pleased at the girls happiness... except she appeared to be crying again.

"My lady, is there something displeasing about it to you? I did try to have it made as close to your family's own as I could manage but-"

"It's _perfect_, Brienne, thank you. I can't believe you had something like this made for me. I never thought I would own anything made of Stark colors. Thank you, _thank you._"

Brienne smiled then and finally returned the hug tentatively before Sansa would relinquish her. She stood and watched as Sansa swept the cloak about her shoulders, covering the scarlet Lannister gown for once in her life with silvery gray and fastening the wolf heads above her breastbone.

"There, now you have something to remind you, anytime you forget. You are Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and no one, not the Lannister's or the Baratheon's, the Mountain, not even _you _can take that away. Your family would be proud to know that despite everything, after all this time, you know who you are." Brienne told her. Sansa looked at her with shining eyes, and Brienne was sure she stood taller underneath her family colors then she had before.

"Now, do you have somewhere to hide this when you leave for Storm's End in a few months? Anywhere that won't be easily searched, or maybe a blanket you could sew around it?" Brienne asked her. That was the only thing she had been unsure of when she brought the gift. She could disguise it into her chambers with the Myrish oranges, but the rest would be up to Sansa. Fortunately the girl's eyes lit up at once.

"When I was little, I used to like sneaking rocks and flowers into my room from the godswood. My septa hated it, she told me it was a dirty habit for a dirty little girl. She'd throw all of them out anytime she found them. But she was the only septa who would agree to instruct me, so even though Tyrion didn't like it he knew Tywin would be angry if they got rid of her. So he had a special trunk made for me with a false bottom and replaced my old one with it while she was asleep. It's very well made, you have to know exactly the right way to press on the wood to slide it open." Sansa told her excitedly, gripping the soft gray silk to her face as she spoke. She was going to smell like Myrish oranges for the next two weeks before that smell wore off, Brienne thought wryly.

"Excellent. We'll put it back in the crate with the oranges and have it taken to your room. I'm sure you know this, Sansa, but you _must _keep it hidden at all times, unless you're absolutely alone. It would be one thing for Jaime or Tyrion to discover it. I doubt they would be angry at you, and they would certainly never harm you. But if anyone at Storm's End finds you with that, you know how the king and queen will react." Brienne told her solemnly. Sansa nodded with equal sincerity.

"I will, Brienne. I'll be careful, I promise."

She took the cloak off after a few more moments and Brienne helped her fold it and place it at the bottom of the crate again, buried beneath the odorous fruit. She fastened the lid securely and called for two large guards in the hallway to transport it to Sansa's chambers. As she'd suspected they would, the guards curled their noses up in distaste at the strong smell, not bothering to open and rifle through it like she was sure they had been instructed to do with any of the Stark girl's belongings. When the guards had left, eager to get away from both the smell and the women they had no interest in socializing with, Brienne barred the door behind them and swiftly aided Sansa in emptying a large gold trunk at the foot of her bed. The false bottom was, as Sansa had said, filled with nothing but long dead flowers and dozens of small rocks in various shapes and sizes. They removed those to lessen the weight of the trunk, so as not to arouse suspicions when she took it to Storm's End, and Brienne dropped the rocks to the bottom of the Myrish crate instead.

When it was all done, Sansa sat on the trunk with a wide smile and a twinkle in her eyes that had been missing all day. She was looking at Brienne as though she'd just offered to take her all the way to Winterfell herself.

"Brienne, truly I can't thank you enough. I've received plenty of gifts from the Lannisters over the years, many even that I treasure, but nothing so wonderful as this." Sansa told her earnestly.

"My lady, if you keep on praising me I'm sure to still be blushing by the time we head to dinner." Brienne replied with a small smile. Truly though, she was sure her face was red with embarrassment by now. It was a rare thing for her to be showered with so much praise by anyone.

Sansa grew quiet again, a sober look replacing the joy as she looked at Brienne.

"Brienne, I know there's nothing you can do to get out of your mission on the Goldroad, and I won't ask you to forsake your honor to do so. And I also know it's selfish of me to ask this, because there's likely no way around it. But when you encounter Sandor Clegane, if there's any way out of confronting him, if you could somehow solve the problem of the caravans without... without killing him or..." Sansa was fidgeting nervously on the lid of the trunk, hands moving restlessly in the air as she tried in vain to fully express what was on her mind. Brienne thought she understood, though.

"My lady, is it my safety you're worried for, or is it the Hound's?" She asked her carefully.

It was Sansa's turn to blush now, a shade of red nearly as bright as her hair.

"That's not at all what I- that is to say I'm only- I... don't want either of you to get hurt. That's what I want. The Hound might be a vicious soldier, Brienne. In fact I am sure he is. But he was not wholly bad, and I'm not entirely convinced he was _bad _at all. He showed me more kindness than almost anyone I've ever met, a nameless girl he could have raped and killed and no family to mourn her. He would have taken me home, only I was too scared to let him. But I don't want you to be hurt either, Brienne. You might be the only friend I've ever had. Don't throw your life away for people like Robert and Cersei Baratheon. There has to be another way. I can't accept either one of you dying for a stupid little stretch of Goldroad and kings who won't remember your name when you're gone." Sansa said.

Brienne bowed deeply. She couldn't deny the truth of Sansa's words. She had no more desire to die for this cause than Sansa had to live for it. Perhaps there was another way. She would give it more thought, examine it again from every angle. Possibly, and the thought alone made her eye twitch in irritation, she would speak to Jaime Lannister about the situation before she left. He'd been leading soldiers and winning battles long before she'd joined the war. Perhaps he could shed some light on the subject. Or Tyrion, who was as known for his cleverness as he was for his height.

Later, back in her own room before dinner, Brienne thought about the Hound. In her mind he was huge and fearsome and cruel, nothing but an enemy soldier to be cut down. But to Sansa he had been almost a savior, and she seemed convinced there was something worth protecting beneath his snarling helm and terrible scars. Maybe that was the key. Sandor Clegane was the one common factor in all of this. If she could manipulate that, perhaps she could save herself without harming the man Sansa was still thinking about.

And if she failed, well, there were worse people to die for than dying in the name of Lady Sansa Stark.


End file.
